How Long It's Been
by sciencegeeky
Summary: Nepeta and Karkat met for the first time when they were five years old. This tracks Nepeta and her relationship with Karkat through their lives, as well as their friends' lives.
1. Elementary School

**A/N: This follows Nepeta and her relationship with Karkat over the years. Please review, it really means a lot to me! **

They were five years old. It was the first day of kindergarten at Lillian Elementary School. The twenty frightened children walked in, one by one, and stood by the door as the teacher directed them to their places.

An especially short girl with olive-green eyes and messy, chin-length brown hair sat next to a shortish boy with dark hair and gray eyes. "Hi," she said shyly. "I'm Nepeta."

"Karkat," he grunted.

"Nice to meet you," Nepeta said. They had free time right now. "Uh…d'you want to play?"

"Play what?" he asked.

"Uh…house? Or computers?"

"Computers," he said. They walked over to the computer area, where six large Mac desktops sat. They were made in 2000 or so, but they worked brilliantly for three-year-old computers. Nepeta clicked on a colorful icon and started playing with the controls of a painting program, while Karkat did something more complicated. She peeked at his screen. "What's that?" she asked curiously.

"It's important," he said importantly.

"But what is it?"

"It's a picture," he said. "Of me and my brother and my mom and my dad."

"You have a dad?"

"Don't you?"

"No. My daddy's gone."

"Gone where?"

"Mommy says he's dead."

"My mommy's dead."

"Then why is she in the picture?"

Karkat scowled at the ground. "I guess I forgot."

"That's alright," she said cheerily. "My mommy's always forgetting things. My big sister Meulin has to remind her of stuff a lot. Especially food and things."

"My brother Kankri doesn't shut up. He never stops talking about dumb stuff I don't like."

"Shut up is a bad word."

"My mommy used to say lots of bad words when she was angry."

"That's for grown-ups."

"I don't care."

She turned back to her computer screen and kept drawing, the way her sister had showed her.

She and Equius had been put in separate classes that year, so she was lonely and scared. But the boy didn't seem to have any friends at all.

"Hey," she said.

"What?" he snapped.

"What's your name?"

"Karkat Vantas. What's your name?"

"Nepeta Leijon. I can spell it."

"Really? I mean, okay."

"Mm-hmm. N-E-P-E-T-A."

"What about your last name?"

She shrugged. "It starts with an L."

"My name starts with K. K-A-R-K…A-T."

"What about your last name?"

"V-A…uh…I don't know the rest."

"Do you have a middle name?"

"No."

"Me either. My mommy does. Her name's Diana Leon Leijon."

"My daddy has a middle name too. His name is Sigmund…Krabbe…Vantas."

"What was your mommy's name?"

"I don't remember."

"My daddy's name is…uh…I forgot."

"That's alright, I guess."

"Thanks."

They were friends from that day on.

Of course, Equius was still there. And Terezi, and Gamzee, and Aradia. And Aradia was always talking about her friend Sollux, who went to Glen River. All six of them counted the others as friends.

On the first day of first grade, Nepeta was in the same class as Equius and Aradia. Her teacher, Mrs. Amaden, was the best. That was the first time she realized she liked to ship people.

"Why doesn't any of us do matchmaking?" Aradia asked one day at lunch. The three of them were sitting all the way towards one end of the large, rectangular table. Aradia and Nepeta sat on one side, Equius on the other, simply because Equius was far taller and generally bigger than either of the girls.

"I like matchmaking," Nepeta said. "My mommy works at a big building where they make matches."

"No, I mean like people going out matchmaking," Aradia said.

"I like that kind of matchmaking too!" Nepeta said.

"Who do you think should go out?" Aradia whispered.

"I think…" Nepeta scanned the cafeteria, noticing Terezi, Karkat, and Gamzee at Mrs. Jones's table. "Terezi and Gamzee."

"Really?" Aradia asked. "I think Karkat and Terezi."

"That too. And Gamzee and Karkat should be friends!"

"That's not matchmaking."

"Is too."

"Okay."

Then the lunch ladies made everyone be quiet before they could go to recess.

In second grade, Nepeta was in the same class as Equius and Terezi. But on the second day of school, a lunch lady asked their class (Mrs. Lee's class) if they could have three volunteers to sit with Mrs. Smith's class. Three hands shot up. That was the class Karkat, Gamzee, and Aradia were in.

The six friends sat three on each side of the table. Nepeta always sat between Aradia and Terezi and across from Karkat. Equius sat across from Aradia and Gamzee sat across from Terezi. They sat in the exact same place every day.

"Karkitty," Nepeta said one day. "You should go out with Terezi."

He blushed profusely and muttered, "Shut up."

"That's a rude word," Equius said.

"It's two words," Karkat pointed out sullenly.

"But really!" Nepeta persisted.

"Second grade isn't old enough for going out," Karkat said.

"Fiiine," Nepeta conceded. "Someday!"

"Maybe," Karkat said.

In third grade, they started going to the 3-5 school that matched up with Lillian. In their district, their were three sets of K-2 and 3-5 schools that fed into each other. Glen River kids always went to Lion, Pleasant Grove always went Brook Ridge, and Lillian always went to Cleese.

For the first time, all six of them were in the same class. Mrs. Friedland was their teacher that year. But the best was their new drama teacher, Mr. Respien.

"Alright, everyone! We're doing some improv. Anyone know what that's short for?"

The smarty-pants kid raised her hand. "Improvisation," she answered.

"Exactly," Mr. Respien answered. "Can I have some volunteers?"

Nepeta raised her hand. "Thank you!" Mr. Respien said. "You, in the green coat, and you, in the red glasses, and you, in the turtleneck. What're your names?"

"Nepeta," Nepeta said.

"I'm Terezi," Terezi answered.

"Karkat," Karkat muttered.

"Okay! The three of you are going to the store. And…go!"

No one moved. "Okay. How about this. You, Nepeta, are the mother, and you, Karkat, are the father, and Terezi, you're the kid. And you're all going grocery shopping together. Do what you would do if you were going grocery shopping."

"I…uh…let's buy milk," Nepeta said.

And that was how she started acting.

"I want to be in the circus," she said at lunch.

"Really?" Terezi asked. "How come?"

"I'm good at gymnastics and sort of at acting. Wouldn't it be fun?"

"Yeah," Gamzee agreed dreamily.

"What about you guys?" Nepeta asked.

"I wanna be an ballerina," Aradia said. "I'm gonna live in New York and dance with the ABT. I'll be the best ballerina ever. I'll be the prima ballerina."

"I'm gonna be a painter," Terezi. "But instead of paint, I'll use chalk. The doctor said that people with…synesthesia are good at art. And I'll be famous like Picasso." Terezi stumbled briefly on the name of the condition that made her smell and taste colors.

"I will be in the Olympics," Equius said shortly.

"I'll be in the circus," Gamzee said. "Tightrope and clowns and stuff."

"An actor," Karkat said. "But I'll only be in good movies. I won't be in a movie unless it's good. And everyone will want me to be in their movies, so I can choose."

"Maybe we can all live near Aradia in New York and go to dinner sometimes together!" Nepeta said excitedly.

"I want to live by myself," Karkat said grumpily.

"You don't have to live with us. You can live near us and come when we go to the movies or something," Nepeta said.

"Yeah," Karkat said. "I'm gonna move far away from my dad. I'm never gonna see him again."

"Why?" Nepeta asked.

"I don't want to see him anymore," Karkat said. "I don't like my dad or my brother."

"Why not?" Nepeta persisted.

"I just don't want to," Karkat said shortly.

"I like my mommy and my sister. And my aunt and uncle. They're nice."

"Lucky," Karkat said enviously.

"You could come over sometime and meet them," Nepeta said.

"I guess," Karkat said.

"Pur-lease?" she asked.

"Fine," he said. "I'll get my dad to call your mom."

"Yay!" she said, smiling brightly.

When she got home that day, she smiled wide and asked her mother, "Mommy? Can Karkat pur-lease come over?"

"When?" her mother asked, smiling kindly.

"His dad's gonna call you," Nepeta said. "Is Saturday okay?"

"I think so, kitten. Go on, do your homework."

"Okay, Mommy!"

The phone rang at nine PM, just when Nepeta was falling asleep. "Who IS that?" she shouted.

"It's your friend's father," Nepeta's mom said. A brief pause. "Saturday!" Nepeta's mom shouted.

"Thanks!" Nepeta shouted.

And that was how she ended up spending three hours with Karkat on a Saturday afternoon.

"Hi!" she said brightly when he showed up the door.

"I'll be by for him at five," Karkat's father said.

"See you then!" Nepeta's mother said.

"Hi," Karkat said.

"So what do you want to do?" Nepeta asked.

"I like playing basketball," he said.

"Me too!"

"You're short though."

"So are you."

Karkat crossed his arms grumpily. "We have a basketball in the garage," Nepeta said. "We can play."

"Okay," Karkat agreed. "But it's not fair since you're a girl."

"I don't care," Nepeta said. "I'll still win."

"I bet you…" Karkat dug in his pocket. "Two quarters."

"Fine. Let's play…seven games. First person to five points wins."

"Okay."

"Karkat one, girls zero!" Karkat said after the first game.

Three games later, Nepeta shouted, "It's a tie now!"

At the end of the six game, they'd each won three. "I'm gonna win," Karkat said. "Boys are better at sports."

"Yeah right! Girls are better."

"Let's see!"

Nepeta won.

"Not fair! You cheated."

"I won, fair and square. Two quarters. Pay up."

"Nuh-uh!"

"Yeah-huh!"

"Come on!"

"We had a deal."

Karkat grimaced. "Fine," he said, handing over the two quarters.

Nepeta smiled. "Thank you very much! Let's go play at the park."

"I don't want to."

"Please?" She knew that of she did her puppy-dog eyes on her best friend, he would agree with her.

"I hate when you do that."

"Come on, let's go!"

"Fiiiine," he said, following her to the local park.

When they got to the park, and they were both on the swings, she decided to ask a question. "Karkat," she began.

"What?" he snapped.

"Can…can we be best friends?"

He didn't answer.

"Is that okay?" she pressed. "I'm sorry if it's not."

"No, it's okay. I'll be your best friend," he said.

"Pinkie promise?"

"Pinkie promise."

And that was that.

In fourth grade, she was in class with Gamzee, Terezi, and Aradia. The only time she saw her two best friends was at recess. All six of them would play soldiers, trying to cross the playground without touching the mined woodchips.

Or they'd jump off the swings and pretend that they had to fly over the line to escape.

Or they'd race around the field, pretending to be cops and robbers.

Eventually, Nepeta picked up the word, "LARPing."

"It means live-action roleplaying," she explained to her friends. "It's like playing pretend, except that it's for grown-ups. And it's more real. If you're LARPing, like we are, then you know that it's not real. So we're LARPing."

"I like the word," Aradia commented.

"LARPing. LAAAAARPing," Gamzee said.

"Cool," Terezi said.

"Whatever," Karkat said.

Equius just nodded.

"I learned a new word," Karkat commented. "Damn. It's a bad word, like hell."

"Your language is unbearably awful," Equius said.

"Stop it," Nepeta said, before they could start properly fighting.

Just then, the whistle blew for them to all come inside.

"We've got middle school orientation today," Aradia said in December of fifth grade.

"What's your school?" Nepeta asked. "William or Smith?"

"Smith," Aradia answered. "We're all going to Smith. Sollux is too."

"I wonder if we'll all sit together."

"I bet we will."

"I hope so. We can sit wherever we want in middle school. They have better lunches, too."

"I heard it's really hard."

"Orchestra and choir and band, you get grades for!"

"Are you going to keep up violin?"

"Yep! Are you going to keep playing cello?"

"Yes. I will also continue singing. Karkat is still playing viola. I think Terezi still plays trumpet by ear. Equius is dropping bass, I think. Sollux will still play trombone."

"Cool!"

"I guess."

Aradia had been acting oddly neutral towards everything since that month when all four of her grandparents and her father had all died. It was weirding Nepeta out badly, but she figured that Aradia had the right to act however she wanted.

"No, you don't have to worry about the older students. And memorizing lock combos is easy!" the principal of Smith enthused. "We have recent sixth graders to show you around after the music assembly. Now, we'll start with the band."

Nepeta watched politely, but she was shaking so badly that she thought she'd cry. Middle school was terrifying! She glanced to her left. Karkat would never show it, but he was clearly scared out of his wits. He would be acting ornery, as ever. She could see right through him. That was what best friends were for, right?

On the last day of school, after field day was over and yearbooks were signed, they all hugged each other tightly. "Okay," Nepeta said. "I want us all to promise, right now, that we'll never backstab each other, tell someone if one of us…you know…gets an eating disorder or depressed or something. Promise."

"I promise," Aradia said.

"Promise," Equius said.

"Of course I promise," Terezi agreed.

"Yeah, I swear," Gamzee said dreamily.

"I promise," Nepeta said.

"I swear," Karkat said, last of all.

And that was how they ended fifth grade.


	2. Middle School

**A/N: I do not own "Jabberwocky" (by Lewis Carroll) or "Land of Our Dreams" (Jay Althouse) or "The Wizard of Oz" (L. Frank Baum) or "Over the Rainbow" (Harold Arlen and E. Y. Harburg). They are just favorites of mine. Sorry if the action moves too fast, but this was getting too long so I made it shorter. **

**Update: I can't believe I forgot to mention that this is Humanstuck. Sorry 'bout that.  
**

Nepeta was shaking like a leaf on the first day of middle school. She'd cut her (previously hip-length) hair over the summer, and she felt exposed. She pulled her green jacket tighter around her and walked into John H. Smith Middle School, home of the Wombats.

The school had just been cleaned. She could smell the ammonia. The patterned tile floor, the same generic kind of floor tiles used in every school everywhere, shone with polish. Everything was squeaky-clean, and it made Nepeta fell badly out of place, with her messy hair and scuffed shoes and ancient cat-shaped backpack. But she braved it anyways, like her sister had advised, and arrived at her first class (history—was the universe plotting against her first day of school?).

"I-I'm Nepeta. Nepeta Leijon," she stammered to the history teacher, Mr. Kelley.

"Hi!" he said happily. That didn't help her nerves. "Take a look at the seating chart and sit where it says to. You'll just need a notebook and a pencil today."

Nepeta nodded, gulping, and found her seat. Why did she have to be fifteen minutes early? There were six tables of four chairs. She was at the middle left one, with some people called Jade, Peter, and Hailey. She pulled her mechanical pencil out of her bag and chose a notebook. She was a huge fan of color-coding, so she made sure to pick the green notebook for history.

The Jade girl was the last person to arrive. Hailey had given Nepeta a dirty look and Peter was absorbed in some book. Jade was different.

"Hi!" she said. "I'm Jade. You're Nepeta, right?"

"Yeah," Nepeta said shyly.

"Nervous?" Jade asked.

Nepeta nodded.

"Me too. But when I get nervous, I get talkative. Hey, what was your elementary school?"

"I went to Cleese."

"I just moved here. My old school was called Palin."

"You just moved here?" Nepeta asked, sensing that Jade was actually nice.

"Yeah, me and my twin brother John."

"So you don't know anyone here?"

"No."

"You could sit with me and my friends at lunch."

"Really?" Jade asked, sounding earnest.

"Of course," Nepeta said, letting her social-butterfly tendencies shine. "I love meeting new people! And John can sit with us too."

"Thanks so much!" Jade said. She dropped her voice and added, "I was scared of not having a place to sit."

Nepeta smiled brightly and the teacher started class.

In fourth grade, they did American History, all the way through. In fifth grade, they did the Revolutionary War. In sixth grade, they did the Civil War. So, naturally, the first thing they did was study the Oregon Trail.

The school system was seriously bizarre sometimes.

Nepeta found Jade and John in the lunchroom and they stood in line together, talking way too fast and way too high-pitched. They were the last to the table, where six people sat at one round table. Nepeta pulled up the ninth chair and sat between Equius and Jade. "Hi guys!" she said. "This is Jade and this is John. They moved here from…"

"From Washington," John said, his mouth full of metal. "We used to go to a school called Palin."

"Do you know anyone else here?" Nepeta asked.

"We had a couple of online friends, Rose and Dave, who lived in New York and moved here, but they go to William."

"William sucks ass," Karkat said, earning him a glare from Equius.

"Yeah, everyone knows that Smith rocks. It's the best school," Terezi said.

"It doesn't matter. Why don't we ignore middle school rivalry and realize that this will be heavily unpleasant and we'll all end up at Brook River East anyways," Aradia stated.

"It'll be fun!" Jade insisted. "It'll be just fine."

"Ouch!" Nepeta shouted suddenly. "What was that?"

"A roll of bread?" Terezi asked, surprised. "These things are like rocks."

"Well, how come it whacked me on the back of the head?" Nepeta asked, annoyed.

"I think someone threw it," Terezi said.

"Who was it? I will force them to stop," Equius said.

"Them," Sollux answered, pointing at some boys wearing muscle shirts and backwards baseball caps and some girls wearing brand-name clothes and…makeup? In sixth grade? The kids in question were snickering like a bunch of idiots.

Equius started to stand. "Stop," Nepeta said, and Equius sat back down.

"Nepeta, they could've injured you."

"Equius. Really, it's fine. We don't want them after us. And, you know, once they realize you wouldn't hurt a fly," She dropped her voice for that part, because Equius had told all of one person that he hated to hurt people. "They wouldn't leave you alone."

Equius nodded, accepting his cooler-headed friend's logic. Not like Nepeta wasn't angry, she was, but she already knew that those kids wouldn't leave her alone. For her small stature, for her odd looks, for her dead father (she now understood that more acutely), for the small artistic talent she possessed, for her best friends, for any tiny detail about her that they could choose to ostracize her.

Middle school sucked.

Every day of sixth grade was the same. Social studies with Jade, math with Terezi, reading with no one but one girl who spent all day poking her with a sharp pencil until a small bruise formed on her left arm, a constant reminder of the fact that everyone in the school hated, for some reason, her. Then science with Equius, lunch with everybody, then writing with Karkat, PE with Aradia and Equius, and then French (the language of love) with at least half the popular bitches in school, who relentlessly bullied her until she felt like exploding.

It was at the end of first trimester, one of those times when everyone was nervous over report cards and final grades. Nepeta was shoving her notebooks and folders into her backpack when someone shoved her over and she landed hard on the ground. The girl, the one called Valerie, laughed. Or more accurately, cackled. Nepeta scrambled to her feet, trying not to betray the pain she was feeling. She touched her knee and there was only a little blood. She grabbed the writing notebook that had slid over to the floor and blink twice, hard, refusing to cry in front of those jerks.

But when she got home, her sister noticed. "Kitty-cat, what's wrong?" she asked, a purr in her voice as always.

"Nothing, Cat," she said to her sister. When she was little, her sister called he kitty-cat, and since her mom called her kitten, she assumed that "cat" was "sister." To this day, she called her sister Cat.

"Now, come on, you've never looked that upset before," Meulin prodded.

"Nothing, really. Some girl just pushed me in the halls today," Nepeta said.

"That's not nothing!"

"Yes, it is."

"You know, when I was in middle school, kids used to bully me a lot. But you know what? Seventh grade is the worst and after that, eighth grade rocks."

"What about sixth grade?"

"Well, it's hard. But you'll get through it."

"Yeah. I guess."

"Hey," Meulin said, suddenly serious. "Promise me something."

"Sure. What is it?" Nepeta asked, nonplussed.

"Promise me that no matter what, no matter what, you'll never hurt yourself, never stop eating or make yourself throw up, and never, ever, commit…never kill yourself," Meulin said, getting choked up towards the end.

"I promise," Nepeta practically whispered, a few more tears rolling down her face before she ran to her room to do her homework and maybe practice her lines for the school play audition monologue.

The auditions were Wednesday afternoon, around the same time as art club and team practices and every other club in school. Nepeta was skipping art club for this, of course. Art was fun, but acting was a passion.

So she stood up in front of the drama teacher, the choir teacher, the band and orchestra teachers, and three student directors and recited the monologue from the play that year, The Wizard of Oz. The only thing keeping her there was the fact that her best friend, Karkat, was there just outside the room for moral support. "Well, I'm a little muddled. The munchkins called me here because a new witch has just dropped a house on the Wicked Witch of the East. And there the house is, and here you are, and that's all that's left of the Wicked Witch of the East. So, what the munchkins want to know is, are you a good witch, or a bad witch? Which witch?" She felt the blood rush to her face and her hands start to shake, but she refused to stop. When she finally finished, she crossed her fingers behind her back and smiled awkwardly.

"Your song?" the choir teacher asked.

Nepeta nodded. Her sister, the best singer in the whole of Smith Middle School, had coached her on this. "Somewhere over the rainbow, way up high," she began, and she kept singing until she held the last note for an eternity or so, letting it peter off into space. She knew she was breathing too hard and her heart was too fast, but she kept it together until she walked out and fainted.

Karkat must've caught her, like she knew he would, because she came to on the posture chair that perpetually sat right outside the stage/orchestra room.

"Oh my gog, are you okay?" he asked. "You just collapsed! Jeez, what the hell were you thinking? You know you get stage fright sometimes!"

"I'm fine," she said. He handed her a water bottle and she drank half of it gratefully. "Thanks, Karkitty," she said.

"You're welcome," he said gruffly.

"Wait, is the nurse gonna come?" Nepeta asked. The school nurse was infamous for being sort of…crazy.

"No, don't worry, I was the only person who saw," Karkat said. For all his grumpy demeanor, he was her best friend and he knew her better than anybody.

Now all they had to do was wait for the cast list to come out.

"Today is the day!" Nepeta squealed to her friends the following Wednesday.

"Today?" Kanaya asked. Nepeta had talked Jade, Kanaya, and Karkat into auditioning with her.

Jade nodded. "After school. We'll see who got what."

"Bet I'm not even damn chorus," Karkat said. "I suck at acting. And singing."

"Don't be so negative," Nepeta said poking him playfully. "We'll find out soon enough!"

And sure enough, they did.

After school, the four of them found the list. Karkat pushed his way to the front, took a couple cruddy pictures on his cell phone, and fought his way out again.

"Kanaya. They put you on costumes," he said.

"Thank you, Karkat," she said, smiling maternally. "I must catch the bus, so see you all soon."

"What about me?" Jade asked eagerly. She didn't really want to be in school play, but there were no cuts.

"Chorus," Karkat said, reading the blurry photos.

"What about you, Karkitty?" Nepeta asked.

"I'm…a Winky," Karkat said. "And a _flying monkey_."

"So you're a dancer?" Nepeta asked.

"Yeah. You are…let's see…you're an Ozian and a munchkin. So I guess that means sort of dancer-singer combo?"

"Cool."

"That's mostly seventh graders, you know."

"Well, I guess that wouldn't be so bad."

"Never know."

"Well, I've got to get home for voice lessons. See you guys!" Nepeta called, walking away.

"Yeah, gotta catch my bus," Karkat said.

"Bye!" Jade called, jogging to the car line.

Nepeta biked home every day. She also biked to school early for orchestra on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. On Mondays and Fridays, she biked to school at the normal time with everyone else. She usually biked with Terezi, who was always ten minutes early to stop at her house. Or maybe she, Nepeta, was just always running late. Probably both. Meulin would probably drive her to high school when the elder sister was a junior and the younger sister was a freshman.

Rehearsals for school play were every Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday after school. Mostly because there were no clubs on Thursdays, teacher meeting day, so everyone could make at least one day. Nepeta came every day and brought homework to do while she waited for her turn to practice. Kanaya spent her time sewing in the drama room. Karkat came sometimes when he couldn't come up with a good excuse in time or Nepeta bugged him enough. Jade came most days, missing only Tuesdays for Builder's club, the service club at school.

But the worst was dress rehearsal day.

The drama teacher, Mrs. T, was infamous for being really awful the few days leading up to school play. And for some reason, she seemed determined to take it out on Nepeta.

"You! In the coat! You need to get your costume on better."

Nepeta rolled her eyes and adjusted the green sash over her left shoulder, accidentally brushing the bruise from the girl in reading class. She winced briefly.

"What was that?"

"I-I've just got a bruise on my left arm…"

"Stop rolling your eyes at me, you little brat! I can kick you out, you know! There's a whole school willing to take your place!"

Nepeta nodded, tears welling up in her eyes. Before Mrs. T could shout one more thing, she nodded again and ran to her favorite hiding spot: through the choir room, to the door everyone thought was locked, through that door, into one of the room the gifted reading kids used. She curled up and tried not to bawl. It wasn't that she cared all that much what Mrs. T thought of her (in fact she was a favorite student when Mrs. T was in her normal mood) but people yelling at her really upset her and she was such an emotional person that she couldn't control the response.

The door creaked open and she looked up, tears still running down her face.

"Nepeta?" Karkat asked.

"Leave me alone," she muttered, but she didn't really mean it, and he knew it.

"You know she gets like this around the time of the play," he said.

She nodded.

"She's a bitch," he said. He'd been swearing a lot more often recently and she had the feeling that it was to do with keeping up his constantly angry image. He was angry plenty, sure, but a good part of it was an image.

She shook her head. "No, she's just stressed."

"She still shoudn't've snapped at you like that," he said. "I could yell at her a bit if it'd help."

She shook her head again. "It's nothing," she said.

"If you're sure," he said, rolling his eyes.

Regaining her composure, she smiled. "You never act this nice," she observed, only half teasing.

"Well, if my best friend is sobbing in a room all of twenty people in this school knows exists, I think I should be comforting like a good friend."

"Thanks," she said, smiling properly this time.

"It's almost your scene, come on," he said, taking her arm and dragging her towards the stage.

The performance and the end of the school year passed just like very other school ending before. Summer was excellent, as always, and they met the William kids. It was life.

Then seventh grade

Meulin was right. Seventh grade was the worst.

On the first day of school, someone stole her favorite cat-shaped lunchbox. During the third week of school, when her cat, Pounce de Leon, died, everyone laughed at her for crying over the animal that she'd known since she was born. At the end of first semester, a boy named Tony stole her report card and waved around the red ribbon she'd gotten for her 4 B's and 3 A's, calling her a teacher's pet and taunting her talent in art class.

She wished Equius was there to protect her.

Right around January, the worst time of the year, she was just standing at her locker when Valerie and Natalia and Maddie and Olivia shoved her from behind again. She threw out an arm to stop her fall, but it didn't help. One of them threw her books under the dusty trophy case while another grabbed her sketchpad and flipped through the drawings, tearing them out and mocking each one. Nepeta scrambled to her feet and grabbed the sketchpad from Natalia, piling the rest of her books into her backpack. She was about to close her locker when Maddie slammed the door on her fingers, causing Nepeta to shriek in pain. She clutched her quickly swelling right hand and ran to the nurse, not even caring that her backpack was half-zipped and she'd left behind three pens and a folder.

"How did this happen?" the nurse asked when Nepeta walked in, cradling her right hand. Her fingers had turned purple by now, and they seemed to be heating up. Probably because of the blood gushing from the two cuts on her middle finger.

"I…I tripped," Nepeta lied lamely. "On the stairs."

The nurse looked doubtful, but nodded. "I'll give you a splint for the rest of the day, but you really must go to the hospital and get that looked at."

Nepeta nodded, wincing as she adjusted the splint on her sore right hand. Luckily she was a leftie.

"I'll write you a pass," the nurse said, scribbling down something on a pink slip of paper and handing it to her.

Nepeta nodded yet again. "Thanks, Mr. K," she said, jogging off to class.

The next week, someone taunted her for the cast on her hand. Another person shoved her again and said, "You're such a little bitch! It's just a bruise! Weakling!"

It wasn't. They'd taken X-rays at the hospital and there were four broken bones.

At the end of second trimester, Tony stole her report card _again_, and this time, he had friends. One of them punched her face and laughed when a tear rolled down her cheek. "You're way too emotional," Tony taunted. "Crybaby! If you can't handle a couple bruises, why don't you just kill yourself?"

She ran away, holding her jacket tight around her to hide the tears that had started pouring down her face.

Meulin hadn't been home much lately, because she was busy planning something for the animé club at Brook River East. Even though she was a freshman, Meulin had been given a lot of responsibility in animé club. Not the dumb kind, either. Real jobs and stuff.

_Gog_, Nepeta thought. _Why am I so useless?_

As usual, Equius came over at four o'clock exactly to do homework. He immediately noticed her tearstained face and asked, "What is wrong?"

"Nothing," she said reflexively, used to the question from the teacher who saw the way she never talked in class anymore, the school counselor who insisted on bothering her every time she walked in front of the guidance office, the nurse when she needed another ice pack or band aid.

"Tell me," Equius ordered.

She broke down in tears, sobbing hopelessly against his side while he gently put an arm around her. She told him everything, starting back on the first day of sixth grade.

When she finally finished crying, he stopped being comforting and instead looked livid. "I will find this Tony and when I am done with him, he will not hurt you ever again."

"No, don't do that!" she protested. She hated him, but she didn't want Equius to really hurt anybody.

"If you insist," he said. "But you must swear to me that you will confront both him and the others."

"What others?" Nepeta ask, playing innocent.

"The females."

"Who?"

"Do not lie to me, Nepeta. I know when you are lying and I dislike it. There are four girls at this school by the names of Valerie, Maddie, Olivia, and Natalia and they are the ones who broke your fingers. I wish for you to confront them and the male. You know you have the ability."

It was an odd compliment, but he was right. No one outside of her PE class would guess it, but she held the school record for most PACER laps, best mile time, and most sit-ups. She had the seventh grade record for most pushups and the flexibility tests. If she wanted to, she could most definitely beat up those girls and Tony too. But hell…she couldn't. She just couldn't. More precisely, she wouldn't.

"Fine," she promised. "I will. Give me some time."

"Until the end of seventh grade. Then I will step in," Equius said sternly.

"What about you?" Nepeta asked. "I know how much crap some of the others give you."

"Language," Equius warned before continuing, "I took care of it."

"Oh my gog, did you kill someone?" Nepeta asked in horror.

Equius looked offended and a little upset. "Of course not! I informed them that I would not be afraid to injure them seriously and…"

"They believed you," Nepeta said. "Oooo, Equius is telling lies."

"I was not," Equius protested, but it was weak and Nepeta knew it.

"I'm just teasing," she said, patting his shoulder. "Hot cocoa?"

He nodded and she left to retrieve the hot chocolate.

She didn't do it the next day. Or the day after that. She told Equius that it was her hand, the broken fingers.

Karkat was worried for her, too. Since he'd beat up an eighth grader in sixth grade, no one messed with him. He used his status as "that kid you leave alone" to basically stand up for all the kids who couldn't stand up for themselves. The kids who were too small, too scared, too nice. He said that he just hated bullies, but Nepeta knew he was a protector.

She actually had to tell him repeatedly that she didn't want him to stand up for her.

It was a conversation they had at least once a week, usually during acting classes on Saturdays. "Come on, Nepeta. You've got to let me have a go at these bitches."

"No," she said. "I can stand up for myself. I told Equius I would."

"Yes," he said. "I'm not going to let them shatter your good hand this time."

"I am fine," she said. "All healed. And anyways, I will stand up for myself. Really. I can do this myself."

That was usually when he relented, saying, "Fine. Fine. If you're sure. But I'm not going to keep this up forever." But not this time. Not this day, two weeks before the last day of school. He changed it around this time.

"Nepeta," he said. "I don't know what you're trying to prove with this. There's nothing wrong with asking someone else for help when you need it."

"But I need to do this for myself!"

"Look, I get that. I really do. But…it's like…we're raised to be independent and do everything for ourselves. Like, we constantly have to be really fucking strong and perfect. But…it's okay to ask someone for help. I fucking hate it myself, but sometimes it is gogdamn okay to ask for help."

"Look. I really can do this myself. I…I have to."

"Okay. I get it. But I'm gonna give you until the end of the fucking year, then I will get those dicks myself."

"Fine. I promise."

Now she really, really, had to suck it up and just do it.

She wasn't exactly expecting one of those movie moments when the bullied girl suddenly gets strong and takes the popular girls twenty notches. But she was hoping for some satisfaction before eighth grade.

Last day of school. They had the picnic, signed yearbooks, said goodbye to everyone. And Nepeta was ready. She walked up to the four girls who had broken her hand and said, "You are all huge bitches for bullying me for two years and I hope you know that. I also hope you know that everyone in the school hates what you do and your only power comes from fear." Then she walked away and collapsed on the grass next to her friends. "I did it," she said.

"Excellent," Equius said, patting her back very gently.

"Good job, Nepeta," Karkat said.

"What about Tony?" Equius asked.

"Uh…" Nepeta said. "It's not important?" she tried.

"No. You must stand up to him or I will take this matter into my own hands. You know this, Nepeta."

"Fiiine," she said. "He's on my bus. I'll get him. Promise."

So that day, after dodging the popular bitches for a few hours, she was ready. She saw Tony and she prepared herself. "Tony," she called.

"What, cat-girl?" he taunted. "Back for more?"

Her entire body was Jello, except her guts, which were lead. But she answered calmly, "No. I'm here to give you what you deserve." She punched him in the face and, smiling innocently, she climbed onto the bus.

She watched as he covered his bloody nose with his hand and the blood dripped from between his fingers. She knew he'd never admit he'd been punched by a girl, so she was safe. A swooping sensation in her stomach made her giggle like a five-year-old.

They had a group chat that night, all nine of them.

**AC: :33 i did it!**

**CG: NO FUCKING WAY. YOU ACTUALLY STOOD UP FOR YOURSELF?**

**AC: :33 yes i did, smart alec**

**CT: D- I am glad to hear you say that. **

**AC: :33 thank you cg and ct!**

**GG: so thats why tonys nose was bleeding?**

**AC: :33 mm-hmm**

**AA: revenge 0f the nerds**

**AC: :33 im not a nerd**

**AC: :33 i am an otaku**

**GT: so we just got tony?**

**GT: cool**

**TA: 2o next year we take no 2hiit from them, agreed?**

**AC: :33 agreed!**

**GC: agreed**

**CG: AGREED. **

**CT: D- Agreed.**

**GG: agreed**

**GT: agreed.**

**TC: AgReEd, MoThErFuCkErS**

**AA: agreed**

**AA: thank y0u, ac**

**AC: :33 it was nothing, really!**

**AC: :33 equius and karkitty talked me into it**

**CG: YEAH, BECAUSE YOU WERE TOO COWARDLY TO JUST PUNCH THE KID IN THE FACE.**

**AC: :33 hey!**

**AC: :33 i did it**

**AA: and g00d j0b.**

The group chat went on for a little longer, an end-of-school party planned. Nepeta felt properly proud, and she was ready to spend the rest of her summer happy.

After that long and happy summer, she was ready. And Meulin was right, again. Eighth grade rocked.

Classes were better now that the story of her and Tony and the other four had spread. The four bitches still tried to get to her, but it didn't seem to bother her anymore. It was annoying, sure, but she brushed it off like a dead bug. She had friends and soon, they'd be off to Brook River East, the high school. They'd finally meet Vriska and Rose and Dave and Tavros and Feferi and Eridan and Kanaya. They'd be in a place where more than half the kids had never head of them. Something about that last day of school had given her confidence and optimism, and she was feeling better than ever.

She could not wait for high school.

But she thought that as long as she was stuck in middle school, she should enjoy it.

So at the end of first trimester, when she was able to keep her report card, she relished it. And during winter break, when she finally got a Facebook, no one gossiped about her. And in January, when she tried out for school play the third time (last year she'd had some sort of minor speaking role, all of three lines), she was ready.

The monologue was a poem this time. _Jabberwocky_. She'd practiced over and over and she was ready.

"'Twas brillig and the slithy toves did gyre and gimble in the wabe. All mimsy were the borogroves and the momeraths outgrabe," she began, being as dramatic and exciting as she could. "'Beware the Jabberwock, my son, the jaws that bit, the claws that catch. Beware the Jubjub bird and shun the frumuous bandersnatch! He took his vorpal blade in hand, longtime manxome foe he saught. So rested he by the Tumtum tree and stood a while in thought. The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame, came wiffling through the tulgey woods, and burbled as it came! One, two, one, two and through and through! The vorpal blade went snicker-snack. He left it dead, and with its head, he went galumphing back. 'And has though slain the Jabberwock? Come to my arms, my beamish boy!' 'Oh frabjus day, calloo callay!' he chortled in his joy. 'Twas brillig and the slithy toves did gyre and gimble in the wabe. All mimsy were the borogroves and the momeraths outgrabe." She finished and looked up at the people who would cast her. "Your song?" the choir teacher asked.

Nepeta nodded. The song was "Land of Our Dreams" this year. "Slumber now, my darling one. Rest, for now the day is done," she sang softly, attempting to throw some acting in with the words. Once again, the only thing keeping her upright was that Karkat was waiting just outside the door.

"We're off to the land of our dreams," she finished, letting her last note fade away to nothing.

The auditioners let her go and she walked out the door, for once feeling like she might have a shot.

"So?" Karkat asked.

"I think it went alright," she smiled.

He rolled his eyes. "At least you haven't fucking passed out yet."

"Shut up," she said.

"Twice!"

"Seriously. Shut up," she said, but it was light and teasing.

"Fine, whatever," he said.

"Your turn," she teased. He sighed and walked in to audition, too. She'd convinced him and Jade and John to all audition this year. "The last year!" she'd said. "We have one more year here. Let's be involved in something huge like this!" And Kanaya was on costumes, of course. Terezi and Sollux were both in the band that would be playing some of the music during the play. Aradia was on makeup. Gamzee…she was ninety-nine percent sure that he was technically on costumes, but Kanaya was keeping an eye on him.

Ever since he started drugs in sixth grade, Gamzee hadn't quite been the same.

It didn't even bear mentioning to her, that Gamzee was on drugs. It was a fact of life and, if she was being honest, it was for the better. In fifth grade, Gamzee was volatile and scary. Then, in the middle of sixth grade, he started drugs, and he was back to his dreamy self. It was a sad fact of life, but it was. He was a bit different, that is, he was completely addicted and a little bit weirder, but he was safe.

The cast list came out two weeks later.

As usual, it was Karkat who pushed his way to the front of the crowd, took a picture or two with his cell phone, and pushed his way out again. "Jade," he said. "You are…the Gryphon. Whatever the fuck that means. John, you are the Chesire Cat. Nice. I am…" he squinted at the blurry picture. "I am th White Rabbit. Oh gog."

"What about me?" Nepeta asked eagerly. He did this on purpose, kept her in suspense like this.

"You are…" he squinted again, longer this time. "Hm…can't quite read the fucking thing…"

"Tell me already!" she squealed.

"You're Alice," he said finally, giving her half a smile.

"No way, really?" she asked eagerly.

"Would I fucking lie about this?" he asked.

She fangirl-shrieked and smiled hugely, hugging him. He stiffened, not used to being hugged, but he didn't resist, because they were best friends.

"That's great, Nepeta!" Jade said, hugging her. "I can't believe it!"

"Thanks," Nepeta said gratefully.

"We gotta catch the bus," John said. "See you guys for first rehearsal tomorrow!"

"I've got to meet my brother for a ride home," Karkat said. "See you, Nepeta."

She nodded. "See you, Karkitty!" she called, skipping to her bike and riding home at top speed.

She was at every rehearsal, no matter what. She missed half of a family dinner (no complaints there—Uncle Leo was weird and creepy) and a few voice lessons, not to mention her sister's panicked "oh-my-gog-Nepeta-you-haven't-picked-up-your-phone -what-the-fuck" calls. Five of them.

On the day of the show, Nepeta was ready. She was in costume, painted with makeup, and double-checking her lines. She was ready for the brief pause right before she "fell" off the stage and into the spinning circles of actors.

The White Rabbit's main role was to shove Alice into the hole for these scenes, so Karkat was supposed to pretend to shove her, then pause for a brief second while the lights turned off and on again. Some logistical thing with the new lighting system. "I'm late, I'm late, I'm late!" he shouted. Then he grabbed her shoulders and started to "shove" her.

Nepeta and Karkat froze just before he "pushed" her off the stage.

She looked up at his face, all of two inches from hers, and she felt like fainting. His gray eyes seemed to be multilayered orbs of silver and his dark, constantly messy hair was just perfect. His hands, gripping her shoulders, were strong and warm and smooth and his lips—

No, she couldn't be thinking this.

Crushes were for other people, older people. Crushes were for those stupid high schoolers who walked around holding hands with someone. Crushes were for her older sister and her friends in high school. Crushes were not for the matchmaker, the one who observes and becomes way too emotionally invested in her friends' relationships. Crushes weren't for _her_.

But dammit, he was beautiful.

It wasn't fair. Why did she have to develop such an intense crush on her best friend? Why did he have to be so _perfect_? His voice, his talent with making speeches that made most peoples' knees turn to water, his adorable grumpiness, his face, everything.

"Nepeta?" he asked, bringing her back to reality. "Get ready."

She fell off the stage for the last time and it felt like she was falling in love.


	3. Underclassmen

Chapter 3: High School

Over the summer, the kids of John H. Smith Middle School discussed the future.

Except, not the way teachers wanted them to.

"What do you guys want to be when you grow up?" Nepeta asked idly, rubbing chlorinated water out of her eyes.

The nine of them were at the local pool, Roosevelt. It was a warm day, and they were treading water in the deep end. Nepeta, Jade, and Karkat were the only ones who couldn't touch the bottom.

"Lawyer," Terezi said. "Harvard Law School, totally."

"I still want to be a magician," John said. "I know it's for little kids, but it's cool!"

"I maintain that I will be in the Olympics," Equius stated. "Weightlifting, most likely."

"I'll be a computer programmer and make the Internet way faster," Sollux said simply.

"Archeologist," Aradia said. "I'd love to work at a university and travel to Egypt and places. Really cool places like that."

"I'll be in the circus, man. Trapeze and clowns and shit…" Gamzee said, trailing off.

"I'm going to be a particle physicist and work at CERN in Europe," Jade said. When everyone gave her blank looks, she added: "You know, the Large Hadron Collider? Higgs Boson, all that?"

"Neat!" Nepeta said, in a very "Yes, Jade," way. "I'd like to be an actor, probably on Broadway. Wouldn't that be amazing?"

"I'll be a director," Karkat said. "Make movies really good. Not like the shit we see sometimes, I mean really good movies."

"Man, when we grow up," Aradia said. "Weird thought."

Nepeta smiled and did a flip in the water. "Oh, you never know," she said. "You never know."

One warm, sunny day in July, Nepeta was hanging out with Equius at the park, eating ice cream. "High school this year," Nepeta remarked offhandedly. "You're going to need a lot of towels."

"I'd rather you not mention that in a public place, Nepeta," Equius said.

Nepeta laughed. "There's no one here. No one comes to the park in the middle of July."

"Then why are we here?" Equius asked.

"Because there's nobody here," Nepeta shrugged. "And in case you haven't noticed, we're not really everybody. We're a bit weird for everybody."

"Well, if we weren't a bit strange, we most likely wouldn't be friends," Equius said.

"You're probably right," Nepeta said. There was a brief pause. "Any luck with Aradia?"

"No. She still seems to enjoy Sollux's company. Even though he's dating Feferi," Equius said.

"So you still haven't had your first kiss then?" Nepeta asked as she licked her mint chocolate chip ice cream.

"No," Equius answered.

"It's okay. Me neither," Nepeta said, looking down at her feet. She didn't want to say how disappointed she was.

"Does that make upset you?" Equius asked.

"Well, your first kiss is supposed to be sort of a big deal, I guess. Like, something that happens before high school," Nepeta said, downcast.

"I don't know why people make such a big deal of it. It's simply a kiss," Equius said practically.

"Well, I just get sick of people flaunting it in my face," Nepeta said. "Especially Vriska."

"Do you have any proof that Vriska has actually had her first kiss?" Equius asked.

"Well, no, but you know what I mean," Nepeta acknowledged. "Even Eridan's had his! How does that work?"

Equius started to answer, but he stopped himself. "I actually do not know," he said. "Perhaps a dare from Sollux? Or Feferi pitied him?"

"Don't you wish you could just get it over with so everyone would stop bugging you?" Nepeta asked.

"Yes," Equius admitted. "It is extremely irritating."

"Do you just want to…like…kiss and get it over with?" Nepeta asked awkwardly.

"Well, I guess, sort of, um, but that doesn't mean I like you, I mean, that I don't like you, but not in that way, but I like you as a friend, and I don't really want to kiss you…not saying that you're a bad person to kiss, it's just that you're my friend, and I don't like you, I mean, I like you, but not in that way, because with Aradia and—" Nepeta rolled her eyes. She stood on her tiptoes and kissed him. She knew that his eyes must be wide, because that was what he did when he was surprised. He relaxed just a bit. The both pulled away after five seconds.

Nepeta blushed bright red. She saw him sweating through his shirt. She said, "Come on, let's get you some towels." As they were walked away, she added, "Don't mention this to anyone."

"I wasn't intending to," Equius agreed. But he didn't sound that upset. They were both glad to have that over with.

Nepeta's hair, now a bit past chin length, was brushed neat for the first time on Freshman Orientation day. Her hair was a few shades darker than it had been in elementary school, but her eyes were the same shade of green. She was a little bit tanner, and she'd gotten a new green coat. Her face had gotten older, her baby fat melting away and her cheekbones showing more. And, of course, she was taller, though still the shortest in the grade. First day of high school. Here goes nothing.

She didn't bring anything to orientation, just a brain full of nervousness and anxiety. The first person she saw was Equius.

"Equius!" she shouted, far louder and more high-pitched than normal. "Hi! Seen anyone else?"

"We are all going to the cafeteria, where we are being sorted by counselor for school tours, a basic orientation, and a schedule walk-through. Who is your counselor?" There were thirteen.

"Myers, you?" Nepeta asked.

"Frances," Equius answered. "Come on, let us go and receive the information we need."

They already had maps and schedules, so all they needed was a T-shirt and a handbook. Which they received from their respective counselors before heading to the theater (it was a proper theater with those seats that come down when you sit on them) and sitting in sections by counselor.

The other person who had Myers as their counselor was Tavros, someone she'd only heard of. Due to what was referred to as an "unfortunate accident," he used walking sticks to get around sometimes. Apparently, he used to be in a wheelchair, but he was doing physical therapy and he'd be able to walk on his own someday. This all had something to do with Vriska, but Nepeta didn't know what.

"Hi," she said to Tavros. "I'm Nepeta. You're Tavros, right?"

The boy nodded. "Y-you're Nepeta?" he asked. "Hi. Nice to meet you."

"Nice to meet you too," she said politely. "Should we sit down or something? I'm not sure I get this."

"Me either," he said. "I…I think, uh, that we sit in the sections, and, uh, they'll, uh, orient us?" He attempted a half-smile, probably freaked out by her social-butterfly-ness.

"Yeah," she said. "Let's sit."

The assembly began with two things, one interesting and one not: the smoke machines, and the kid who started coughing so bad that she had to go to the nurse.

"So now you'll have six minutes to find each class and five minutes in each class to meet your teacher and classmates!" the principal finished. "Off you go!"

Nepeta immediately stood up, waved to Tavros, and walked quickly to Honors World History. She had three honors classes: World History, Bio, and French. Her elective for first semester (finally two semesters instead of three trimesters; that system made absolutely zero sense) was Woodworking, better known as Woods. It worked for the Applied Arts half-credit they needed to graduate.

Nepeta was never good at maps, but this was just impossible. The school was huge and hard to navigate, not to mention terrifying. She was late to every class.

And she was starting tomorrow.

That night, she didn't sleep well. She stayed up on the computer for a bit, then she tried reading one of her favorite romance novels, then she tried some yoga poses her aunt had taught her. Finally, she just put on her sleep playlist and drifted off.

Her alarm rang with its usual annoying beeping. She threw out her arm and slapped the snooze button to turn off that gogdamn _beeping_.

Meulin walked into her room and said (shouted), "Come on, little sister! Up and at 'em!"

"Shut up," Nepeta groaned.

"Come on, first day of high school!" Meulin enthused. "And I'm driving us, so get up and get in the car before I leave without you."

"Fine," Nepeta conceded, throwing something at her sister before getting out of bed. She heard a dull thud and a muted, "Shit!" so she could assume that her missile had reached its target.

She rolled out of bed and got dressed in the outfit that she'd laid out the night before. Her stomach was pounding already, and she felt bile creep up her throat. She didn't eat breakfast; what was the use when she'd just throw it up when she got to school? She brushed her teeth and rubbed her eyes one more time. At least she didn't need contacts or anything.

"Kitty-cat! Grab your stuff, it's time to go!" Meulin shouted.

"COMING!" Nepeta shouted. She picked up the backpack and extra bag from the bookstore, throwing both into the backseat of the Toyota and climbing into the passenger seat. She was fidgeting badly and the music was her sister's, which was like hers but not enough for comfort and the roads were busy and what if they were late and oh shit, here they were. She climbed out of the car, her sister whispering a few last words of encouragement, and walked through the doors and into the school.

Brook River East had four main "wings." The humanities wing, which had English classes on the bottom floor and history classes on the top floor, was the oldest wing. The math wing had science on the first floor and math on the second. Between the two wings was the cafeteria, the library, and most of the art rooms, known as the arts wing. Sticking out from the arts wing was the PE wing, where the gyms, the pools, the wrestling room, and the Driver's Ed room were. Her classes were practically across the school from each other. Top floor, bottom floor, arts wing, math wing, everywhere! But never near each other, because heaven _forbid_ she have an easy time with her first day of high school. Or any day after.

Nepeta could list several very interesting things that had happened in the first semester of high school. Starting with Terezi.

There were a whole ton of labs in the first month or so of school. Labs with lots of chemicals. Including lots of acids.

Nepeta had honors bio, so she never saw what happened. But she was in the nurses' office three seconds later, rushing away from PE as soon as she was called to see her friend. But she heard the story from several different viewpoints, so she managed to piece it together.

It seemed that Vriska and Terezi, the inseparable best friends, had some sort of falling out over the summer. Terezi tried to stop Vriska from pushing Tavros in front of a bus, and Vriska was pissed and tried for revenge. Revenge that took the form of a potent acid.

Terezi had been pouring test tubes of acid for the lab they were doing in bio. Vriska had purposefully, when Terezi reached across the sink to grab a second chemical, jostled Terezi's arm and knocked the acid into her eyes.

Vriska, in falsely trying to help Terezi (Nepeta was sure that no one in the school would realize that her friend was lying about helping Terezi), had taken too long to get Terezi to the eyewash station and blinded her.

But it seemed that Terezi's synesthesia came through for her, and she still smelled and tasted colors and shapes. It was one of the weirdest and most amazing things Nepeta had ever heard. Gamzee, of course, called it a "motherfucking miracle".

It seemed to piss Vriska off even more that Terezi's incredible sense of smell and taste meant that she barely even needed a cane. Terezi just bought a fun pair of candy-red (apparently the most delicious color) glasses and walked around like normal. She could even still write, and sometimes even read. It was amazing.

But Nepeta, who had been getting a hunch about who Karkat liked, watched carefully as her crush seemed to fall for Terezi even more now that she couldn't see.

Then there was Meulin.

Nepeta never really found out how it happened, because Meulin never said. But about two weeks into the year, Meulin didn't come home at night. She came home the next morning and scribbled something on a piece of notebook paper and left it on the kitchen table.

The next thing Nepeta heard was her mom screaming.

Meulin was deaf.

They went to an ear doctor, and the doctor couldn't do anything. There was no fix. Hearing aids did nothing, and Meulin couldn't even hear tones. She was completely deaf.

So the three of them learned sign language. Meulin shouted a lot. Their mother bought a couple of those voice-recognition things that type a person's voice for the landline and Meulin's cell phone.

They coped.

Nepeta would occasionally pester her sister about what had happened. About everything else, Meulin was an open book. But on that subject, she didn't say a word. No matter how many times Nepeta asked, or how she posed the question, Meulin would avoid talking about it. She would dodge the subject and talk instead about something like the weather or schoolwork. If Nepeta was paying attention, she could sometimes catch a hopelessly sad look on her sister's face for just a second before Meulin was smiling again.

She asked her mother, too, just once or twice. It very quickly became clear that Nepeta's mother didn't know anything more than Nepeta did. And honestly, it scared her. What could've happened that was so horrible that Meulin was completely mum on the topic?

She didn't want to think about it.

The third thing that happened in the first semester of high school was Homecoming.

"Nepeta?" Karkat asked, about two weeks before hand. "Can I talk to you?"

Nepeta jumped and turned around. _Oh gog, what if he asks me? What do I say? What do I wear? Oh my gog,_ she thought. "Y-yeah," she stammered.

"Okay. So there's this girl, and I want to ask her to Homecoming, and…I need some advice," he confessed.

Recovering her sanity, Nepeta joked, "Oh, the great romance master asking for advice."

"She's a girl!" Karkat exclaimed. "She's a fucking girl so she makes no gogdamn sense!"

Nepeta nodded. "Give her a flower," she said. "Or cookies."

"Anything else? Like, what the fuck to say?"

"Just ask her. It's not Prom," Nepeta advised. What if the girl was her?

"Okay. Uh…what sort of flower?"

"What's her favorite flower?"

"I don't fucking know!"

"Then a rose," Nepeta answered. She was barely keeping herself under control. She swallowed hard and crossed her fingers behind her back.

"Okay. Thanks. So…um…anything else?" he asked and he looked shy and embarrassed and he was blushing and he was so _cute_ when he did that…

"Well…who is she?" Nepeta asked.

"Uh…" he looked awkward. _It's me!_ she thought.

"Terezi," he confessed.

She tried her hardest not to look disappointed. "Okay. Uh…be funny. She'll like that. I've got to go and meet my sister for a ride. Bye." She practically ran away. "Nepeta!" he shouted after her. When she turned the corner before he could ask her what the hell was up, he sighed and said, "Well, fuck."

She'd know all along, hadn't she? From the second the three of them walked into English class on the first day, she'd known that he had a crush on Terezi. He was the first one in the office when she went blind, the first one to volunteer to help her around the hallways, the one who was always next to her. It was obvious.

She had to talk to someone. Emotions often affected her more than most people, and she most often used talking to get it all out. So she opened Meulin's door and signed, "Hey. Uh…can I talk to you?"

"Sure!" Meulin shouted.

"Quietly, please," Nepeta signed.

Meulin nodded. "What is it, little sister?"

"It's this boy…"

"Oh! Does he like you?" When Nepeta didn't answer, Meulin added, "Do you like him?"

"Uh…you know what, never mind. I got it," Nepeta said.

"If you're sure," Meulin said, shrugging. Meulin smiled to her sister and turned back to her junior-year piles of homework.

Nepeta walked back to her room and wrote a paragraph of an essay for English.

She wasn't sure why she didn't tell her sister about her crush, about the traumatic event that had just occurred. Maybe it was nerves, maybe it was because it was a "secret crush", or maybe it was because she wanted a few things to be kept for herself in this crazy, crazy world.

She almost didn't go to Homecoming. She was too nervous. But Aradia (who, since starting high school, had seemed much more chipper and upbeat) and Terezi (of all people) had talked her into it. So after pizza and pictures at Vriska's house and Kanaya fussing over everyone and a bit of counseling for Equius to ask Aradia to dance, she tried to smile as they walked to the school, all of five minutes away. Talk about a non-conventional group. But hey, wasn't that what weird friends for?

So Nepeta danced to the music and laughed and had a good time. She drank the (hopefully not laced) punch and joked about how nicely the huge school gym was dressed up. Brook River East was nice enough that the only dance held off campus was Prom, which was at the hotel where ACen was held. That was a yearly joke for Nepeta, seeing the Prom kids try to find their way to the dance through the hoards of otakus.

"Equius!" she whispered. "We've only got fifteen minutes left; it's now or never!"

Equius shook his head. "I cannot. Perhaps next time?"

Nepeta rolled her eyes. "Fiiine," she conceded. "But I'll hold you to it come Winter Formal."

There were three dances every year (four, counting Prom). Homecoming, Winter Formal, and Turnabout. Winter Formal was way more formal than the other two; there was a dress code and sometimes some fancy snacks. If Equius didn't ask Aradia at that dance, he'd lose his shot for the year because Turnabout was about girls asking guys. So Nepeta was going to make sure that the two of them got together by the end of the year.

She was the matchmaker. Not like her mother's second job at the match factory (the single most embarrassing moment of her childhood when she looked back, the time when she confused matchmaking and making matches), but in the make-sure-everyone-gets-together way. So far, she had two missions: Tavros and Vriska and Aradia and Equius. She was sure she'd have more by the time high school was over, but for now she was sticking with the two. And with one unworkable until January, she was left to work on Tavros and Vriska.

She knew she should work to get Terezi and Karkat closer, but…she didn't think her heart could stand it.

Nepeta looked over at Terezi and Karkat just as they kissed.

She was sure that this was what heartbreak felt like.

Or maybe just a little crack. Terezi and Karkat were always together. Holding hands, doing the whole romantic looking-into-each-other's-eyes, kissing. But the kissing wasn't the worst. The worst was the teasing. The gentle little pokes at each other, the cute little words and phrases that bounced back and forth, all the little things that told her how happy they were together. Every time she saw the couple, she felt her heart break a little bit more. And every time she saw them, she knew that it mattered more to her that he was happy than she was.

But she wasn't happy at all.

Some of her love for him was the selfish, I-want-him-with-me love. But most of it was a desire to see him happy. So when she saw him happy with Terezi, her heart both smiled and cracked.

If she wasn't careful, her heart would shatter before too long.

It fun trying to persuade Tavros and Vriska to get together. Nepeta knew she had to wait until Turnabout, because Tavros would never have the self-confidence to ask someone out. It didn't matter much, who asked who, as long as someone got asked. So she was subtle. Really subtle.

"Hey, Tavros," she said one day in bio. "Turnabout's coming up."

Tavros nodded. He looked worried, that is, more worried than usual. "Something up?" she asked.

"I…uh…I want to ask someone, but, uh, I can't," Tavros admitted.

"Aw, that's too bad," Nepeta said, pretending to think. "Hey, I could talk to them for you, if you like. Who is it?"

Tavros looked around nervously. He lowered his voice and stammered out, "V-V-Vriska."

"Oh!" she said, pretending to be surprised. "Really, would you like me to talk to her for you?"

He nodded, looking deeply awkward. "Uh…if you wouldn't mind?"

"Of course!" she said. "Anything for a friend! Just tell me what you want me to do."

"Uh, would you mind just, uh, asking her if, uh, she wants to ask, uh, anyone out?" Tavros suggested meekly.

"Sure," Nepeta said. "I'll tell you what she says."

"Thanks," Tavros said gratefully. Nepeta smiled to herself. Her plan was in action.

She shared only lunch with Vriska, so this part was a bit risky. But as things went, Tavros had an orthodontist appointment over lunch, so she could talk to Vriska on her own.

"Hey, guys," Nepeta said when she sat at their table with her tray. She had a hamburger and French fries and a chocolate milk. (She'd promised her mom that she'd buy milk every day in sixth grade and now it was a habit.) She glanced around at her friends' lunches, and they were all the same as they were every day. Equius had two milks and two hamburgers and some vegetables, Terezi had a lot of red food, Aradia had a ton of chocolate even though she was skinny as a stick, Karkat had a sub sandwich and chips and a Mountain Dew and M&M's…it was the same every day.

Nepeta loved that about her life.

"So, who're you guys asking for Turnabout?" she asked her friends.

"No one," Vriska said smugly.

"Karkat," Terezi answered. "He's too afraid to ask me out anyways."

"You should ask someone, Vriska!" Nepeta enthused.

"Like who?"

"Hm…" Nepeta pretended to think. "How about Dave?"

"No way."

"John?"

"Maybe," Vriska shrugged.

"How about…" Nepeta did her best thinking face. "How about Tavros?"

"I dunno, maybe," Vriska shrugged.

"You should!" Nepeta persisted. "I think he might like you."

"Really," Vriska asked, feigning indifference.

"Mm-hm."

"Fine. I'll ask him."

Nepeta smiled and nodded. This hadn't been hard.

Now all she could do was observe.

She had a rule for herself about shipping her friends: if they broke up, she didn't try to get them back together. They might just not be right for each other, and she got that. No matter how hard she tried, she knew that some of her ships would always sink.

Turnabout was the same as Homecoming and Winter Formal (which Equius had not asked Aradia to). Nepeta danced with all her friends and smiled and laughed and had fun.

It still hurt to see Terezi and Karkat together.

But it was sophomore year when things began to really get interesting.

It started with Homecoming. With Tavros finally working up the courage to ask Vriska to the dance, even if they'd been going out all summer. With Nepeta pushing Equius into finally asking out Aradia. With Feferi coming to her for advice for asking out Sollux. With Rose and Kanaya coming out (finally) about their relationship. With Karkat and Terezi still being together.

Everything seemed to be happening at once.

And still, no one had asked Nepeta to any dance. No one had ever asked her out. No one.

It wasn't exactly encouraging.

Her sister, of course, told her that she was beautiful and smart and not to worry. Her mother told her that any boy would be lucky to have her. Her friends assured her that she was fine. But she still wondered: was something wrong with her, that no one seemed to love her the way she loved others?

She had animé club every Tuesday, and art club on Wednesdays when she didn't have school play rehearsal. She was chorus, of course, but she was hoping for a bigger role junior year. She made friends everywhere she went and in every club she joined; so why didn't she seem to have the…whatever it was to get a boyfriend?

So she dived into her friends' romances.

She had been, was, and always would be the matchmaker, the shipper, the observer. She watched at the ice skating rink as Terezi swung Karkat around until he nearly fell over. She watched as Sollux and Feferi shared their first kiss. She watched Equius and Aradia skate holding hands.

She watched others, not herself.

So it was probably her fault when she collided with another skater and fell on the ice. Her ankle twisted painfully underneath her and she shouted, "OUCH!" She pulled herself up using the wall on the edge of the rink and added in an undertone, "Shit." Her ankle felt bruised, possibly sprained. Equius skated to a stop next to her. "Are you okay?" he asked.

"I'm fine," she said, but then she fell again. Pulling herself up a second time, she added, "Okay, no I'm not. Help me off the rink?"

Equius nodded. She threw one arm around his shoulders (sort of—he was at least a foot and a half taller than her) and he supported her waist as they walked off the rink and she sat in the bleachers. "Go on, go skate with Aradia," Nepeta said.

"Are you sure?" Equius questioned.

"Yes," she insisted. "Go on, I'll be fine."

He left and she pulled off her skate, probing the brightly colored skin with her fingers. It was swollen and purple, and she had a feeling it was sprained. So instead she watched more, observing blooming and dying romances that were her friends' or strangers'.

It was too late to call her mother for a ride, and they didn't have enough seats for her in the car of her only friend with a license, Vriska. So she had to walk home with borrowed crutches and a bandage. Gamzee and Equius walked with her, of course, because they all lived in the same direction.

Walking home, Nepeta had a nagging feeling that something was wrong. She'd long since learned to trust her nagging feelings, so she was on high alert when it struck her conscious mind: Gamzee was sober. Her mind scrambled frantically though ways to ditch him before something bad happened.

But just as half an idea came to mind, Gamzee turned and decked Equius. Taken by surprise, Equius couldn't react in time. Gamzee produced a club from out of nowhere, a juggling club, and whacked Equius over the head. He fell over and suddenly Gamzee had wrapped his hands around Equius's neck and was strangling him.

Nepeta was terrified. She stood on her good leg, dug her house keys out of her pocket, and held them between her fingers. She snuck up on Gamzee and tried to punch him in the face, forcing him away from her best friend. But as he rounded on her, he grabbed her fist and scraped the keys across his face, carving deep gashes into his skin. Horrified, she stumbled backwards as her sprained ankle gave way beneath her. It was all she could do to scramble backwards while he attacked her with the club.

Every time he hit her with the club, it raised new bruises and opened new gashes. Her blood stained the sidewalk as she tried desperately to escape. "FIRE! FIRE!" she screamed, something she'd learned to do in self-defense. She started to scream for her friends, the ones who mattered the most to her. "EQUIUS!" she screamed, uselessly and desperately. "KARKAT! HELP! PLEASE!" But then he hit her mouth and she couldn't speak. As the blood drained from her body, she knew she was going to die. She'd always been strong and fast, though she didn't look it. But she couldn't run or fight with her badly sprained ankle. She knew this was her end. It was the end.

She started to crawl to Equius. If she was going to die, at least she could die next to her best friend. She persistently inched her way to Equius, even as Gamzee continued to bludgeon her with the club. She finally reached him and took his hand, squeezing tightly. She needed her best friend with her in her last moments. She closed her eyes. Surely Gamzee would let her stay here to die, when she was so clearly already good as dead.

But she was wrong. Gamzee grabbed her around the waist and threw her into the middle of the street. Her limp body landed heavily on the ground. Her arms splayed out and her bad ankle hit the ground with a painful thump. Her breaths were irregular and painful. Gamzee's face was right above hers, unbearably close. She couldn't see anymore. He was covering her mouth with his hand. She couldn't breathe. She tasted salty blood and the stale lack of air that was killing her. Her heart fluttered, trying to replenish all the lost blood, but barely any oxygen was entering her lungs. Horrible, terrifying fears shot through her mind. She tried desperately to take a breath. She forced her arms to move to push Gamzee away, as far from her as possible. She dug inside herself for a last burst of strength and screamed, "HELP ME!"

She had a vague memory of someone, not her, screaming.

As she lay there, bleeding on the street, she thought of everything she'd wanted to do. She was resigned to dying. She thought of everything she wished she'd done. She wished she'd seen the local botanic gardens once more, spent one more afternoon with her friends, eaten one more dinner with all her work friends at the animal shelter, spent one more car ride with her coworkers Leah and Janie and Marissa, gone to one more convention, even just spent one more evening in her room on any old night. She wished she'd told Equius what it meant to her that he was her best friend, or that she'd told Karkat how much she loved him and how she didn't think she could live without him. She wished for so many things in what she was sure were her last moments. So many things she knew she'd never get to have.

She had a vague memory of blue and red lights flashing in her vision, of Gamzee running away. It never became concrete, no matter how hard she tried. No matter how scared she was that it was going to be her last memory.

She had several vague, confusing memories of her family and friends coming to see her that could've been real or dreams. It was, if she was being honest, terrifying.

She was at the trial. Gamzee pleaded insanity and somehow got out of any sentence besides rehab.

She wasn't quite ready to forgive him.

She was forgiving; she didn't hold grudges. She knew it was unhealthy, so she tried to be forgiving. But she couldn't quite forgive the person who had nearly murdered her, even if he wasn't entirely himself when it had happened.

She spent a lot of nights wondering about a memory she had that might've been real or a dream. It was a memory of someone she knew, someone she loved, coming to see her. They held her hand, said something too her, kissed her cheek. She remembered trying to reply, but being too confused and tired to form words. Whoever it was, they had kissed her on the lips and left, leaving her confused and upset.

She wanted it to be real.

But it was probably just a dream.

She'd dreamed up someone to love.

What did that say about her?

But she'd made a decision, probably brought on by her near-death experience. She wasn't going to let her love rule her. She wasn't going to let the love that seemed to eat her up from the inside destroy the optimism that she'd always held. Sure, it sucked that her crush was dating someone else. But she was going to stay herself. She wasn't going to lose the things that made her happy.

So she let herself smile when she saw him in the hallways. She let herself giggle when he did something adorably stupid or told a joke that really wasn't that funny. She let herself crush on him, convinced that it would eventually go away.

At Turnabout, she actually danced with someone. Sure, someone was Equius and it was mostly because Aradia hadn't come, but she didn't mind. She liked the feeling of dancing with her best friend, even though there was no romance between the two.

She was in the Variety show again that year. The last performance was the weekend before finals. She had one role: part of the group that was doing the cup song. It was a big role for a sophomore, so she was proud, but nervous. What if she screwed up?

But on the night of the last performance, Karkat and Equius were both there in the audience. Many of her friends were also in the show, so the few who weren't had all come the last night.

Nepeta sat on the stage with the cup in front of her and the microphone over her mouth as she sang and did the clapping pattern and when she saw Karkat smile at her, she was sure that although it had been a pretty bad couple years, the next few would be much better.


	4. Upperclassmen

**A/N: Trigger warning for self-harm in this chapter. So sorry for the long update! I was at overnight camp for a week and had no Internet or computer. The chapters are taking shorter timeframes now and I'm not sure why except for that's the way the story's going. Hope you like it!**

On the first day of junior year, Nepeta brought a laptop to school for the first time. It was required this year, a special kind of laptop that was cheap and small. Everyone had one, and they were no good. They were annoying to use, the keyboards were too small, and the Internet connections were lousy at best. But hey, at least they weren't cat-killer textbooks.

The main problem was that Nepeta's didn't work.

She tried to set it up at home with her wifi network at home, but for some reason the connection in her room was utter shit, and she needed the Internet to log onto the stupid _thing_. So she couldn't set up the computer she needed for junior year. So she was in deep trouble.

In her third class, Calculus, she decided to speak up. Plus, she hated her teacher. So she raised her hand and said sweetly, "Excuse me, Mrs. Jenners? My computer doesn't connect to my home Internet. How can I utilize these wonderful resources if I can't access them with a frankly mediocre at best computer that doesn't connect to the Internet?"

The teacher shot her a look that said quite clearly, "Not again." These computers were shit.

"You'll have to be creative," Mrs. Jenners replied. "Or use the computer in school at the textbooks at home."

"Thank you, Mrs. Jenners," Nepeta said sweetly, just enough that her voice was saccharine but not so disgusting that the teacher would mark her as a bad kid. Everyone thought that since she was small and looked younger than she was, she was innocent. She would admit that she was relatively innocent, but she was not above using her innocent appearance and sweet voice to manipulate people. She often purposefully got her teachers to like her, and if she really hated them, she would argue in such a way that it sounded like she was truly confused and/or suggesting a solution. She raised her hand so much that teachers stopped calling on her so if she missed her homework, no one would notice. She knew enough trivia to make it sound like she knew what she was talking about.

Except in bio. She was actually good at bio. She was constantly torn between acting and biology (her more recently discovered passion). She had two events in Science Olympiad: Anatomy & Physiology and Disease Detectives. She also had school play and Variety Show to worry about, not to mention stuff like the insane amount of junior-year homework and SATs and ACTs and every single other thing in junior year.

They said junior was the worst, but she had no idea it would be this crazy.

It wasn't helping that she'd gone for honors physics on a whim and now that she was in the class, she was royally screwed. She barely even had time for shipping anymore, what with honors physics and AP US history and Calculus and honors year 4 French and the rest of everything else.

The one good thing was that she'd chosen yoga for her PE class, so she got fifty minutes of yoga every day. She was a big believer in yoga, because it had always worked for her.

But she was still in deep trouble when it came to physics.

So she went to Equius.

She was better than him in French, English, history, and bio. But he was far better in all the other sciences, math, and of course PE. She had him tutor her in physics so she could get a passing grade.

"One over the focus length is equal to one over the object distance plus one over the image distance," Equius explained, punching some numbers into his calculator. "You see?"

She nodded, scribbling some notes down and trying to repeat his results. "The reciprocal button," he reminded her.

She finished the problem and triumphantly circled the answer, passing the paper to Equius. "Negative thirty point five six centimeters," she pronounced.

"No," he said simply. "Negative fifteen point two eight."

"Shit," she muttered. He gave her a reproving look.

"I'm going to swear if I want to," she told him, starting to get frustrated with the work.

"Try again," he replied. "Redo step three."

She nodded and took a yoga breath, trying to expel the tension from her body. "Okay. Trying again."

She brought home a D on her first physics quiz.

On the second one, after Equius tutored her, she got a B+.

It wasn't much to most honors physics kids, especially Terezi, who had an A in physics from the start. The irony in the fact that Terezi's bet grade was in optics wasn't lost on anyone, especially Dave. Nepeta, from watching her friends at lunch, knew that Dave was starting to crush on Terezi, who reciprocated on some level, and that Karkat was deeply jealous of Dave. So when Terezi and Karkat broke up, it was no surprise. But still, her heart soared and she was secretly hoping that he would ask her out next.

Then her friends took over her job.

"Hey, Nepeta," Aradia said, sidling up to Nepeta.

"What is it?" Nepeta asked. She had school play auditions that afternoon, plus SAT prep classes and piles of homework. And her sister was gone at college. Couldn't forget that the house was unnaturally empty with only two at the table and no one shouting over the phone and an empty bedroom.

"Soooo Terezi and I decided that you needed a break from matchmaking and we set you up with someone for Winter Formal!"

"Wait WHAT?" Nepeta shouted. She wasn't sure what she'd been expecting, but it sure as hell wasn't that! "What the fuck?"

"This guy called James," Aradia said. "You've got French with him."

"The tall guy with brown hair?" Nepeta asked. He was attractive enough, but she wanted to go with Karkat. Which was why the next thing Aradia said nearly made her pass out.

"Look, I know you'd prefer to go with Karkat, but he asked Terezi again and she said yes."

"HOW DID YOU KNOW ABOUT THAT?" Nepeta screamed, drawing several odd looks from other people in the hallway.

"That's not important. Terezi doesn't know, so don't worry. What is important is that you and him will have a great night and you get a break from matchmaking."

Nepeta sighed. "Fine, whatever," she said. "See you at lunch?"

Aradia nodded, smiling widely. "See you!"

Nepeta trudged to her next class. She hardly knew this James guy, and now her friends expected her to go to the dance with him? It wasn't anything like an actual date (she'd probably just wander away and dance with her friends the whole night), but still! She was still fuming internally when she sat down, throwing her backpack on the ground and slamming her textbook on the table. Just her luck that this was her French class, in which she sat in between James and Terezi. Terezi smiled her devious smile and poked Nepeta.

"I know," Nepeta said, before Terezi could explain a second time. Terezi smiled wider. "Well?"

"Well, what the hell?" Nepeta shot back. She normally wasn't this snappish, but she was under a lot of stress already.

"Oh, come on! You two will meet up at the dance and…you know, dance! He doesn't know it's you, though."

"Aren't you going with Karkat?" Nepeta asked, desperate to change the subject.

Terezi nodded. "He apologized for the fight and asked me so I said yes!" she grinned, practically swooning.

"Aw, that's so cute! I'm so happy for you two!" Nepeta lied, plastering a picture-day fake smile on her face.

"Thanks," Terezi smirked. "Oh, here he is!"

James walked into the classroom and sat next to Nepeta. She'd been helping him out for a while in French, because he was horrendous at the language. That was probably the reason they'd set her up with him. Aradia must know him from another class. He offered her a small smile and asked, "Can you help me with the conjugation of être?"

She nodded, doing the you're-sort-of-an-idiot-but-it's-okay-because-you' re-my-friend smile. "Sure," she said aloud. She guessed he was cute enough. His hair and eyes were brown, but his eyes were dark and his hair was light. He was much taller than her, almost as tall as Sollux (who was gangly and looked like he grew a foot overnight), but not in a bad way. He wasn't skinny, but he wasn't especially large either. The main thing about him was that he wasn't Karkat. "Look, you start with the _imparfait_ form, right?" she began. Her mouth went on autopilot as she scanned the classroom for the couple she was convinced was a couple, even if no one else could see it. No one else _could_ ever see things the way she did. It was like when she looked at the way two people interacted, even the tiniest of things. She had once discerned a relationship from a glance the two exchanged in the hallway.

No one else saw the way she did, so she already had a sense of the sort of relationship she and James would share. They'd go to the dance together, have a good time, go on a few dates, kiss a bit, then have a quiet, we-both-know-we're-not-right-for-each-other breakup. Her friends were probably convinced that the two would make an excellent couple, but Nepeta wasn't sure. She might trust this whole thing a bit more if Aradia was the only one. Terezi was her very good friend, but also not a great perceiver of relationships.

Class started and Nepeta could only worry. That her friends were wrong, that they were right, that this would all go wrong, that it would all go right.

And about other things. Every day since junior began, she would go to Karkat's house irregularly (but before Terezi came over) to check on him. He'd been acting withdrawn and angry lately, that is, more than before. It worried her badly. Equius was the same as ever; she mostly worried for his grades and ambitions and general state of being the way she worried for her own. When it came to Karkat, she worried about something different. She worried about the way he never wore short sleeves anymore, the way he'd dropped school play and his other clubs, the way he refused to come over to do homework together anymore, and especially the way he'd stopped doing acting classes on Saturdays, something they'd done together since they were little.

It was a cold Thursday in December when her suspicions were confirmed.

She'd made sure his father wasn't around, and of course his brother was at college. Terezi came most days, but not until six or seven. So she ran to his house and, using the spare key, she snuck up to his room. Most people would consider that creepy or weird, but having a best friend like that made just about everything okay. Including slamming open their bedroom door at 3:30 in the afternoon to see them holding a craft knife, a bloodstained rag, and a first-aid kit.

She screamed and shoved him off the chair. He shouted and instinctively shoved her back. "What the FUCK, Nepeta? What are you DOING here?"

She was sobbing, inconsolable. Up until this moment it hadn't seemed real. It felt like a crazy dream, a delusion from teenage stress. She'd needed the proof, and here it was. Here was real, proper proof that one of her very best friends very much wasn't okay. "Karkitty," she pleaded. "Why are you doing this?"

"I don't want to talk about it," he snapped. But she wasn't going to let that dissuade her.

"I don't care that you don't want to, tell me anyways!" she insisted. "You can't carry on like this!"

"Whatever," he said, crossing his arms sulkily.

"I will sit here until you start talking," Nepeta insisted, sitting across from him, crosslegged on the floor.

There was silence for a long moment, but as usual, Karkat was the first to relent. "It's just…Kankri's gone. And I hated him, but at least he understood me. My dad is great and all, but it's like he's not even fucking there half the time. He's got no fucking clue what high school's like. And Terezi…okay. She's all like, 'I love you, Karkles,' and it's all great, but then some days she's just like, 'What the fuck ever, go away, I hate you.' And… uh…alright, we've gone farther than first, and now it's like that doesn't even count for anything. She's always talking about how Dave is so hot and perfect, but she never talks about me anymore. I asked Vriska and her other friends and they said she doesn't even care about me anymore. It's like…no one cares anymore. Since Gamzee's in rehab all the time, I never see him, like, ever, plus he's in sixth lunch and we have no classes together…it's like no one cares anymore."

_I care!_ she wanted to scream. _I've been coming over after school every day, not when your precious girlfriend comes, just to make sure you're okay. Because I care so much about you! Because I fucking love you!_ But she didn't. Instead, she went for reassurance, her basic grasp of human emotion coming through for her.

"You know you're supposed to hate your dad," she began. "If that makes you feel any better. It's part of being a teenager. It's normal. And as for Terezi…maybe you two just need to sit down and talk to each other about stuff. She probably doesn't realize she's doing it. Just…be honest with her. Have at talk with her and make sure you're honest. Try to get her to be honest. A Saturday would be good, and try for a neutral location, like, neither of your houses. I'm sure you two will work things out." And she was. Much as it hurt to admit, she knew they would work it out. "Okay, Gamzee is a bummer. We all miss him. He was a great friend. But he needs to focus on himself for a while, like you do. You've got to focus on making _you_ feel better, okay?" She looked at him in the most maternal way she could manage, her hands on her hips and looking at him as if over a pair of glasses. She did this sometimes, took on a vaguely protective role, whenever he seemed especially depressed or otherwise emotionally not okay.

"What d'you mean?" he asked grumpily, still using that closed body language. She took his wrists in her hands to force him to open up.

"I mean, remember that people care. Try this. Every night, right before you go to sleep, think of every person who cares about you or loves you or both. I can think of at least seventeen."

"Yeah right," he scoffed.

"Your dad. Kankri. Terezi. Gamzee. Kanaya. John. Jade. Sollux. Rose. Dave. Eridan. Feferi. Vriska. Tavros. Aradia. Equius. Me. And don't forget people in your classes, your other family, your mom, even though she's…dead. Your brother's girlfriend. People love you, Karkitty," she said affectionately. "You know it makes me sad when I see you sad. And also…tell you dad. I know it seems hard, but please, tell him." She did her puppy-dog eyes and finally, he relented again.

"Fine," he said. "I will."

"And I'm taking these all home and burning them," she said, picking up the rag and the blades. "First aid kit goes back in your medicine cabinet."

"What?" he asked angrily.

"No way I'm letting you do this again," she said. "These are all going away."

He crossed his arms again and sighed angrily. "You're such a freak sometimes," he grumped, but there was no real venom behind the insult, just sadness.

"Hold on a sec," she said. She went to the kitchen, made a plate of peanut butter and crackers, poured a glass of water, and gave them to him. "I'll be right back," she said. She walked into the bathroom and opened the medicine cabinet. Placing the first-aid kit inside, she also took out every bottle of pills and emptied them down the sink so the amount left wasn't enough to even make him sick. She didn't even want to acknowledge the possibility, but it wasn't just a paranoid thing anymore. It was real.

Back in his room, Karkat was picking at the crackers and peanut butter. The glass of water was half-emptied. Nepeta's phone buzzed in her pocket, and it was a text from her mother calling her home for dinner. "I've got to go, Karkitty, but promise me you'll talk with Terezi and your dad."

"I promise," he said.

"Pinky promise?" she asked, half-joking and half-serious. It was a reference to the way they used to promise the most serious things when they were little, when the most serious thing was who was first in the lunch line.

He rolled his eyes, but complied. She left his house and locked the door behind her, a little of the weight lifting off her shoulders.

She was one of the few people who knew that his dad made him see a therapist every Thursday after school. Gamzee started coming home more, and Terezi and Karkat repaired their relationship. And over the next year, he started to recover. It made her entire being glow when he started smiling, no matter how scarce it was.

Meanwhile, she was dancing with this guy called James at the Winter Formal. Who was nice enough, quite cute, and maybe the sort of person she could be in a relationship with. So when he asked her if she wanted to go on a date to the movies, she of course said yes. Maybe her friends had been right; maybe this would work out better than expected.

"So," she said, once the movie (Catching Fire) was over. "What'd you think?"

"It was pretty good," he said. "I liked the actor they picked to play Finnick."

She smiled goofily. "Peeta or Gale?" she asked.

He looked confused. "I'm not gay," he answered.

She rolled her eyes. "I mean, who do you want to end up with Katniss?" Why was everyone so damn _obsessed_ with sexual orientation? She sighed and added, "I think Peeta."

He shrugged. "Whatever," he said. "It's not really all that important to the story."

This wasn't going to work out, was it.

She knew the second he told her how little he cared from anything even remotely to do with romance. He'd never even heard of most of her favorite movies or books. He didn't know the plot of Love Actually or The Hunger Games. She wasn't much for Twilight, as she found Bella to flat of a character, but she'd read it and knew the plot. He hadn't even heard of it.

And she didn't share his interests either. She barely knew the rules of football or baseball, and she was by no means interested in car racing. She was able to feign interest, to even try to learn the rules, but it was all he talked about. It was starting to drive her nuts.

It was around Turnabout when she ended it, about three weeks before. "Hey, James," she said one day in French. "We have to talk."

"Sure, when?" he asked

"After school, my locker," she stated. Hopefully this would be quick and easy and she could get home and finish studying for the SATs in just a few days.

After school, at her locker, she had planned out just what she would say. "James," she said. "This isn't working out, and I think we both know it."

He looked shocked. "But…I thought you liked me."

"I do," she said. "But we're not really compatible and I think we'd be better with other people." _Please don't drag this out_, she silently prayed. _It's been, what, two months max._

He just had to drag it out, didn't he. "But I still like you! A lot! I still love you!" Those three words, the infamous "I love you", had never been exchanged in their relationship. So why the hell was he bringing it up _now_?

"Look, I just don't think we can keep getting along like this," she said. "We don't share any interests, at all. We're not in the same circles, and I just feel like this isn't working out."

Just as he was about to say something else, she pretended her phone had just rung. "I've got to go," she said, feigning that she wanted to stay. "My mom needs me home. I'm sorry, but this just isn't working."

He sighed. "I'll call you?" he half-asked.

She didn't answer.

Oh gog, she felt like such a bed person now. She'd just left him like that, without a real answer. But did he really have to drag it out? She was still spacing out as she walked to the car with her stuff and sat in the driver's seat. She was waiting for Equius, just like every other day, when Karkat knocked on the car window. She rolled it down. "What is it?" she asked, nowhere near her normally chipper self.

"Jeez, angry much?" he asked antagonistically. "I need a ride."

"Why not catch a ride with Terezi?" she asked, only a tiny drop of resentment creeping into her angry voice.

"Why are you so fucking pissed?" he asked. "She fucking broke up with me, happy?"

"Oh my gog, what happened?" she asked, properly concerned. "Yeah, you can have a ride, get in the back."

He climbed in the car and started talking, not questioning her directive not to get in the front. Best friendship like that was nice. "Well…she was saying how we aren't working and she doesn't think we'll work out and I…I got pissed and started fucking shouting and so she got angry back and we had this huge shouting match…and it might be over for good this time."

He said that every time.

He always thought it was over for good. Every time. And every time, a couple weeks later, he called, or she called, and they got back together for another few months. It was killing her to watch, this cycle of his sadness and hopelessness and then sudden hope and happiness, then back to despair. And it wasn't easy watching that happen to Terezi either. Nepeta was close with Terezi, too, so as an observer, it was devastating her.

Just then, Equius walked over to the car and clambered into the front seat, saving her from again supporting his and Terezi's dysfunctional relationship. "Hi, Equius!" she chirped. "We're dropping off Karkitty today, too."

Equius nodded. He didn't much like Karkat, but Nepeta had talked him out of truly hating their angry friend. She backed out of the school lot and drove her two best friends home.

At home, her mother was cooking dinner. "Hey, Mom," Nepeta said. "I'm home."

"Hello, dear," Nepeta's mother said. "How are you?"

"I'm good," she answered. "Broke up with James, finally."

Nepeta's mother nodded. "Don't forget you've got SATs soon."

"I won't," Nepeta groaned, rolling her eyes. She walked up to her room and pulled out her study stuff.

On the day of the SATs (considered the most important at her school), she woke up on time for once and made sure to eat breakfast, something she often forgot. She was driving there, and Equius was driving back in her family car. Since her mother rarely went anywhere outside of walking range, Nepeta drove to school every day. Equius only had their family car on Wednesdays and sometimes Thursdays. When he had the car, he would call her and he would drive. But for today, a Tuesday, she would drive.

"Quadratics formula," Equius said.

"Easy, that's eighth grade math," she responded. "X equals negative b plus or minus the square root of b squared minus four A C, all over two A. Okay. Quintic formula."

"A X to the fifth plus B X to the fourth plus C X to the third plus D X squared plus E X plus F. World War II, basic facts."

"Usually cited at 1939 to 1945. Hitler led Germany…" she recited, getting more detailed as she went on. "And the Allies won in Japan when they dropped nukes on Hiroshima and Nagasaki."

"Good job," Equius complimented, still stony-faced. He must've been terrified.

"Alright, your turn. Impact of Shakespeare on writing."

And so they quizzed each other until they arrived at the other high school in their district, Brook River West, the testing center.

Nepeta was shaking as she opened the test booklet and started to bubble in answers. She didn't speak when they had the snack break; she barely ate. She felt like she was about to explode when she went back for the second portion of the test.

But in the end, she made it back to the car and thank goodness Equius was driving.

"So?" she asked him.

"I believe I received respectable grades," Equius responded stiffly. "And you?"

"I guess I did alright," she acknowledged. "There were a few questions I wasn't sure on, but I think I did alright overall."

"Good," Equius said.

The rest of the drive was silent.

But Nepeta was used to that. Equius was often quiet; the two of them could hold conversations in complete silence. She smiled and relaxed. School didn't start till noon the next day; at least she'd be well-rested, and likely less stressed.

She still checked on Karkat, but not as often. She was irregular in her timing, to the point where she'd go once a day for a week then not at all for a while. She'd never caught him at it except once, right before testing week, with a pair of scissors. He was getting so much better and it made her so happy to see.

Of course, there was AP testing too. For AP US History and AP English and Composition or something. But that wasn't quite as stressful, for whatever reason.

College was the truly scary prospect. She was going on a college road trip with her mother that weekend, to the colleges in the area. Northwestern, UIC, U of I Champaign, and a few others. She wasn't really considering any colleges close by, but maybe U of I Champaign. Maybe.

In the car that Saturday, with her mother driving, she felt the wish anklets she'd made back in seventh grade. Looking back, it had probably been a coping mechanism, the wishing. But there was one that hadn't fallen off; the one she'd made between eighth and ninth grades. She'd wished that someday she'd marry Karkat. It seemed exceptionally childish now, but she still had the anklet on.

The colleges were nice enough; U of I Champaign's foreign language building was horrendous, and Northwestern was huge. Other than that, both made not much impression on her. She had more trips that summer, anyways.

Junior year ended as every year before; knowing she'd done something, unsure of what was ahead, scared of the huge future ahead of her, and hopeful that maybe next year would finally be the year.


	5. Senior Year

**A/N: Oh my gog I am so sorry I'm taking forever to update this! Since school started and all my classes are just diving right in, I haven't had time to type at all! Hopefully the overall quality goes up, though, because I'm taking Creative Writing. Don't worry; Alex doesn't stick around! I just wanted a character for Nepeta to date who wasn't Karkat and I couldn't think of any non-OC's that were single and/or ship with Nepeta. **

Chapter 5: Senior Year

"Do you ever find it odd," Rose began. "That in the group of twelve who have lived here their whole lives, everyone has an older sibling of the same gender and star sign (who are all the same age as each other), one parent of the same gender, and a six-letter first and last name scheme you share with the older siblings? Not to mention that there is one family group of each star sign and your typing colors are arranged in zodiac and rainbow order, starting with Aradia at dark red but skipping Karkat with gray? And no offense, but your names aren't exactly common. For the most part, they are associated with your star sign, as well. Don't you find that a bit weird?"

The twelve looked at each other, then shrugged. "Don't you find it odd that you all have four-letter first names, six-or-seven letter last names, names extremely similar to those of your parents, and a twin? Plus, Dave's an albino, Rose has pink eyes, you all type in your eye colors, you all moved here in the same year, and you knew each other before that?" Kanaya asked back.

The four looked at each other, copying the motions of the previous twelve. "Coincidence is a funny thing," Jade said, just as the end-of-lunch bell rang.

At the end of the day, Nepeta was exhausted. She didn't know why; it was only the start of school! She was capable of running off of very little sleep, so why was she tired now? Not to mention that her throat was killing.

But the next day, she climbed into the family car and drove to Terezi's house. "Hey Terezi!" she shouted out the window.

Terezi stuck her head out a second-story window. "Coming!" she yelled. A few moments later, she slid into the backseat. "Let's go!" the blind girl cackled.

Soon after, they arrived at Equius's house. He must've been waiting for her in the front room, because he was out the door as soon as she pulled up. He sat in the front seat and nodded a greeting. Nepeta smiled affectionately and drove to Karkat's house.

Karkat was always the last and the grumpiest. He had horrible insomnia; he never got enough sleep. And he wasn't much of a morning person to begin with. Terezi offered the boy a devious grin, which Karkat returned feebly. Terezi reached her hand over to latch onto Karkat's. Burning jealousy rose up in Nepeta's body and for once, it was pure jealousy, not any manner of pity or anything else mixed in. She just wanted Terezi out of there.

But she compressed the feeling and gripped the steering wheel tighter, forcing the car sharply around turns and braking suddenly.

"Jeez, Nepeta, take it fucking easy," Karkat muttered.

"Are you feeling alright? Shall I drive?" Equius pressed.

"I'm fine," she hissed through clenched teeth. "Gog, can't a girl drive a fucking car without the whole damn carpool jumping down her throat?"

"Alright, I'm taking over," Karkat said. "Pull the fuck over."

"I said I'm fine," Nepeta snapped. "And if you keep asking, I won't be."

"Fine, gog," Karkat said, holding up his hands as if in surrender. At least, the hand that wasn't practically glued to Terezi's. Anger and jealousy shook her body as she pulled sharply into the spot. "Everyone out," she ordered.

Her friends, sensing the negative emotion boiling in her mind, climbed out with their stuff and left her alone.

She didn't have a first period class, so she could sit in her car and sob.

It was guilt over her jealousy, her anger, her yelling. It was sadness over the fact that she'd never, not in a million years, be allowed to love the one person she adored completely. It was hopelessness over a secret she could never tell and a confession left forever unsaid. She just hugged her knees tightly against her chest and bawled.

She forgot that Karkat didn't have first period, either.

A knock on the car window. She jumped, startled, and looked out the window angrily, trying to project a "You get the fuck away" look.

She also forgot how loud Karkat could shout.

"NEPETA, YOU ROLL THIS FUCKING WONDOW DOWN RIGHT DAMN NOW!"

She rolled the window down a crack. "What?" she snapped.

"What the fuck is wrong?" he asked. "You're fucking bawling your eyes out in your car and you were all pissed on the way here."

"It's nothing," she said.

"What, is it a guy?" he asked.

She paused, then nodded. "Yeah…it's complicated."

"Well?" Karkat asked irritably.

"Well what?"

"Well are you going to tell me what's wrong now or will I have to wait here until you fucking spill?"

She shook her head, curling in on herself again. Sobs still shook her body, but now it was more of a constant whimpering cry than the vicious sobs from before.

It took a while, but eventually she stopped crying and started putting on makeup. She used the cosmetics mirror inside her blush to carefully make up her face so nothing seemed wrong. She used concealer to hide the tear tracks on her face and eye shadow to distract from the redness. The only visible makeup she wore was touch of mascara, to make her look aware and awake. She took a deep breath, set her shoulders back, and plastered a smile on her face. Gog, she was tired.

She threw her backpack over her shoulder and threaded her other arm through the other strap. "Come on!" she said to Karkat, going back to her normal bubbly self.

Karkat followed, shocked. As they walked through the doors, he asked, "Do all girls do that?"

"Most of us," Nepeta answered. "See you at lunch!" she said, splitting off for French 5 and leaving him wonder how many times she'd done that before.

She touched up her makeup in the bathroom just before lunch. She made sure to make it look like she wasn't wearing makeup at all, save that touch of mascara or eye shadow. It was art many of her female friends practiced. She pushed her short hair behind her ears and stood up straighter. Her coat covered up how skinny she'd gotten recently, though she'd been eating like normal. She was worrying herself; was she sick? She coughed heavily and bent over the sink, bracing her hands against the hard plastic. She rubbed her sore eyes and buttoned up her olive-green trench coat to hide that disturbing skinniness that was really starting to scare her.

She picked at her food at lunch. Equius was staring at her. "Eat," he ordered. She shook her head. Karkat was staring at her, too. Her eyes found her turkey/ham sub and stared at it, though she occasionally popped pieces of food in her mouth.

"You are not feeling well. You must go to the school medical professionals," Equius commanded.

Although her vision was going funny, as it did just before she fainted (she was a fainter and a blusher, what luck), she insisted, "I. Am. Fine." Just before she blacked out.

She came to in the nurse's office on a cot. "You've got to get to the hospital," the nurse said. "I recommend getting tested for mononucleosis."

Nepeta nodded. _Mono? You've got to be kidding me_, she thought.

But the nurse was right. She must've picked it up from that game of Spin-the-Bottle Terezi had talked her into back in August. She was exhausted and her throat killed, not to mention the fact that she was stressed and heartbroken. Her body was practically skin and bones. Her bony wrists and ankles scared her—what if she…what if she died?

She had odd dreams while she was sick. She dreamed that she had gray skin and black hair and candy-corn shaped horns. Her fingernails and toenails and horns were red shading to orange shading to yellow, although there was very little orange and no red on her nails. Her bones were also yellow and her blood was olive green. She didn't know how she knew this; she just did. Her eyes were also yellow, except her irises were sometimes her blood color, in the dreams when she was older. She still wore that green coat, like always, and a black T-shirt with an olive-green Leo symbol on it. She also wore gray straight-leg jeans, blue running shoes, and a blue cat hat. She was a hunter, raised by a white cat (her lusus) who shared a name with her old cat, Ponce de Leon.

Nothing changed in the dreams; they were like an animé with a defined plot. It was like she was watching the episodes out of order. In some she was as old as ten sweeps (twenty-one years or so), in some as young as four sweeps (eight years or so). Even in the youngest dreams, she was best friends with Equius. In the dreams, she called him her moirail.

In the best dreams, usually the oldest ones, Karkat was her boyfriend. She called him her matesprit, but it meant the same thing.

She wished so badly it was real.

Her dreams were so often better than her reality.

Her friends brought her all her work, and she kept up. But it was _hard_. She slept a lot, took a lot of cough meds, and kept up.

She hated being sick.

About a month later, she felt ready to face school again. She filled one pocket of her coat with cough drops and prepared to face the world.

She wasn't driving that day; Equius was. She sat in the passenger seat and Terezi and Karkat sat in the back. The tension was palpable, crackling in the air. "Did they fight again?" Nepeta asked Equius quietly. He nodded. She made a mental note to ask Karkat and/or Terezi later.

"What happened?" she asked Karkat concernedly at lunch.

"We fought," he answered tersely.

"About what?" she persisted.

"Uh…you," he answered. "Cuz I'd bring you work. And she didn't believe me."

"Why didn't she just ask me?" Nepeta questioned testily.

"I sure as fuck don't know, but she got all pissed and said I could get someone else to give you the work, but hell, we have four out of six fucking classes together, so what the hell, I'll fucking help out my friend."

Nepeta nodded, turning back to her food and contemplating her choices. She could talk to Terezi about it. She could also let it be. Or she could talk to Terezi as if she hadn't talked to Karkat and get her point of view.

The third option, definitely.

She had AP Psych (easiest AP class ever) with Terezi, so she talked with her good friend before class.

"Did you and Karkat fight again?" she asked sympathetically.

"Yeah," Terezi said.

"What about?" Nepeta questioned innocently.

"Uh…" Terezi looked uncomfortable. "Honestly? You won't piss off?"

"Course not," Nepeta said.

"Well…I guess it was really my fault this time. I mean, it's definitely been this fault before," (Nepeta didn't doubt that) "But this time…I got jealous cuz he was always at your place dropping off work. And I know you were sick with mono and shit, I just…I got jealous. And I was probably a bit PMS-y, you know how it is. I wish we could get back together…" Her voice seized up and Nepeta felt sorry for her friend, even though jealousy was still burning hot. "Nepeta…could you help?"

It pained Nepeta, but she nodded.

Gog, what had she gotten herself into?

It was Winter Formal, and she'd maneuvered around her friend's questions to set the two of them up with each other, although neither knew it. She'd been asked herself (finally) by Alex, a guy who sat next to her in AP Psych who she had a minor crush on. She had a nice, twice-worn dress ready and she would be doing her hair up this time. That is, if she could manage her short, unruly hair.

"_Maman!_" she called. She'd taken to calling her mother _Maman_ since taking French 3 and meeting her great-aunt, who had visited from France.

"Yes, dear?" her mother called back.

"Can you help with my hair?" she asked, doing her jokingly pleading smile, even though her mother couldn't see it.

Her mother climbed the stairs to the second story of three bedrooms and two bathrooms and smiled. "Sit down," her mother said affectionately. Nepeta sat down on her rolling chair and let her mother fix her hair into something nice. She put on her own makeup and shoes and purse and then waited by the door.

When the doorbell rang, her stomach dropped into her shoes. Oh gog, he was here. She stood up quickly and answered the door, shaking nervously. "Hi," she said, smiling awkwardly. She felt her face turn scarlet and heat up. She bit her lip and looked down. He was really cute.

"Hello, are you Alex?" Nepeta's mom asked politely, emerging from the office.

Alex nodded. He was so much nicer than James. "Nice to meet you, Mrs. Leijon," he said, pronouncing her awkward last name properly.

"Nice to meet you, too," Nepeta's mother smiled. "Go on, you two have fun. Curfew is midnight, Nepeta."

"Okay, Mom," Nepeta said. "See you!"

"Bye, dear," Nepeta's mom said. She'd already gotten the "don't do anything reckless or drink or do drugs and if you get pregnant so help me you will be in so much trouble" lecture. Twice.

"So, to the dance?" Nepeta said nervously. Her insides were Jello as she walked with him to his car. Oh gog, he was really cute. It was nice dealing with her own love life for once.

"So," she said, trying to think of a conversation started. Why was it so much easier to advise others than deal with her own love life? "How 'bout them Bears?"

He laughed, and she was glad for the détente. "I don't know, but the Science Olympiad team is doing pretty good."

"Oh, that's right, you've got, what, five events?" Nepeta asked. He was a science nerd, but she didn't mind. In fact, it was kind of hot.

"Yeah. Don't know if I can handle all of them at Regionals! I've got Circuit Lab, Compound Machines, Chem Lab, Forensics, and Materials Science."

"So all the chemistry and physics?"

"Basically…you've got Anatomy and Physiology ad Disease Detectives, right?"

"Yep. I did alright."

"You got first and second, didn't you?" he asked, and she was flattered that he noticed.

"Mm-hmm," she said. "Sorry, but I don't remember yours."

"It's okay, I didn't do so good. All fourths and fifths, a couple sixths."

"Are you kidding? That's great!" she exclaimed. "So, you excited for the dance?"

"I suppose," he said. "I think it'll be good, because I'll be dancing with the prettiest girl in the school."

It was a cheesy compliment, but Nepeta blushed nonetheless and replied, "I guess that means I'm stuck with the second-best-looking person there."

He smiled as they arrived at the school parking lot and pulled in. He wasn't a very good driver, she noticed. He parked crookedly and often seemed to forget that in Illinois, yellow lights were as good as red lights. But that was more her habit of scrutinizing people. She also noticed how he fumbled with the car door handle, indicating that he was nervous. He wasn't too much taller than her, not like James or Equius or even Eridan. It was nice, she would admit.

The Winter Formal wasn't really a big deal; Homecoming and Turnabout were much bigger. Well, and Prom. But all sixteen of them were there, including Terezi and Karkat, who both looked truly shocked. Nepeta suppressed a laugh.

"What is it?" Alex asked. He was observant.

"Oh, it's just a couple of friends I set up together and they're both really surprised," she said, gesturing to the couple in question.

"Them?" he asked incredulously. "My friend Leah was going on about how those two are on and off all the time and then they had a huge breakup or some shit…I don't know, but she was talking about it a lot for about a week."

"Oh yeah, they're always doing that," Nepeta said casually. She lowered her voice and added, "If you want to know the truth, I think they're really bad for each other."

"So why'd you set them up again?"

"Because she asked me to," Nepeta sighed. "Gog, I'm such a pushover."

"Gog?" he asked.

"It's a thing," she tried to explain. "When we were little, me and my old friends, we would always say 'gog' because our teachers made us. And I guess it stuck."

"Controlling teachers," Alex noted.

"No kidding." Nepeta rolled her eyes. But then she let her usual smile light up her face and grabbed his hand, pulling him towards the school. "Come on, let's go!" she exclaimed.

He seemed to appreciated her optimism and bubbliness and tendency to romanticize. He shared her firm belief in the best of humanity; he also sought out the good in even the worst of people. Even when her teachers and classmates cynically analyzed the actions of politicians and historical figures to money and power, she argued that maybe whoever it was had been doing whatever for love or something positive.

"Tickets," the teacher at the door said, and Nepeta and Alex handed over their tickets. "Have a nice night," the teacher said with copious boredom. Nepeta smiled and walked in, hand and hand with her date.

It was a nice night: Chicago cold (under thirty degrees) and snowing lightly. The driving would be difficult when the dance ended at eleven, of course, but that didn't matter. A Chicago 'burbs native. Nepeta loved the snow.

She was contemplating her friend's dancing partners when suddenly, Alex pulled her into a spin and she twirled in a tight spiral, giggling. Her head went light and dizziness made her giggle even more. Alex caught her and she, once she was standing again, pulled him onto the dance floor.

After a long night of dancing with her hopefully-soon-to-be boyfriend, she was quite honestly exhausted. Her side hurt and her feet were covered with dust (because she danced barefoot as a rule). Alex and her walked arm-and-arm back to his car, and his smooth skin was warm and soft and it made her feel like her insides were doing the Macarena. She was still flushed a possibly dangerous color of red when he opened the door for her and she slid into the passenger seat.

As the drove home through the now-heavy snow, she promised herself that she'd drive next time.

Finally, the snow was too much and the traffic built up until they were forced to pull off the road and wait. There was silence in the car, because neither of them felt like turning on the radio.

"So…did you have fun?" she ventured.

"Yeah," he nodded. "You?"

She nodded. "It was nice," she said. There was a long, silent pause. She was about to say something hopefully mildly interesting when he slowly leaned over and she realized that he was going to try kiss her. She moved closer and gripped the skirt of her dress tightly, apprehensively.

When their lips met, she saw sparks crackle in front of her closed eyelids. His warmth was so near her own, his smooth lips barely brushing her own at first, then pressing harder as the kiss deepened.

Just as she slipped her lips open the tiniest bit, someone honking behind them startled her. "Traffic's moving," she managed.

"Right," he said, shifting the car from park to drive and driving her home.

When she got home, it was too snowy for them to exchange the sort of kiss she wanted, the deep kiss that made her feel like floating and melting at the same time. So she satisfied herself with a light brush of their lips and a parting, "Goodbye-I'll-call-you" type thing. She was still dancing as she walked though the front door and up the stairs to her room. 11:59, just on time. She collapsed on her bed, still in the olive-green dress that her mother said brought out her eyes, and stayed awake for two hours just from elation.

She woke up at twelve noon on Saturday, still in her dress and still on her bed. Her phone, sitting just next to her, had three messages. One from Alex (so he wasn't the crazy texter type), one from Terezi (she knew what that one said), and one from Equius (also very predictable).

Terezi's text was, as she'd guessed, asking about her night with Alex. Nepeta replied with her usual gushing over how great he was (because he was) and a question about Terezi and Karkat. Equius's text read as if it was fro an older brother, and Nepeta replied in kind. Alex's text read, "I'm free next Saturday, and I was wondering if you'd like to see a movie or something. If you're free too and everything."

He used good grammar and spelling, she noticed. She replied, also with her best grammar and spelling, "Sure, I'd love to! Seven o'clock showing at the Brook?" The Brook was the "shopping center" in their boring suburb.

"Sure," came the reply. Nepeta laughed aloud and scribbled the date in on her calendar. Gog, she was so smitten. Maybe she should message her sister. But her sister had classes on Saturdays, so maybe it was a bad idea. She contemplated her choices, then decided to call her sister that night.

Meanwhile, her friends were all gossiping over Jade and Dave dancing and Terezi and Karkat back together again and Aradia and Equius (it was a matter of time with that one) and Sollux and Feferi kissing and Tavros and Vriska finally breaking up (that relationship was quickly turning sour for both) and her and Alex at the dance together. As much as she did take a guilty pleasure in gossip and trashy magazines and the like, she was much too excited for something like conversation.

The next week was full of anticipation and nerves. She saw him every day in psych, but there was no real label for their relationship and there was always a teacher or Terezi there. So she didn't have much of a chance to talk to him, even make eye contact.

On Saturday, she actually wore something nice-looking. She almost always dressed for comfort, because it was school and it wasn't like she was trying to impress anyone. But today, today she would dress nicely.

"Mom! I'm going out! Can I take the car?" Nepeta shouted.

"With a boy?"

"His name is Alex Hunt and we're going to be at the theater at the Brook!"

"You can take the car and be back by ten!"

"Okay!" Nepeta called, swinging herself into the driver's seat of the Prius. Her first date since James, and this time with someone she actually liked. Not that she didn't like James, but Alex was so much…better.

The movie ended on a positive note and Nepeta smiled. It was really a cute movie, a chick flick honestly. But that was all right; it was a good, well-written movie with a strong female lead. "What'd you think?" she asked Alex.

"I thought it was good," he answered shortly. "I mean…I actually liked it."

She smiled. "Good," she said, taking his hand. It was nine-thirty or so. "I've got to get home," she said. "My mom'll get really pissed off otherwise."

"What about your dad?" he asked.

Her eyes found her shoes, as if the metallic toes of her flats could distract from the answer. "He died when I was three."

"Oh," Alex said. "Sorry."

"S'alright," she said. "I don't remember him too well."

There was an exceptionally long silence. "Well…good night," he said, but his hands were fidgeting and he was leaning over and…he was going to kiss her.

In a sudden rush of confidence, she stood on tiptoe and kissed him.

She wasn't the best or most experienced judger of kisses, but this one was next to perfect. His lips were soft, if a little bit chapped, and his hands brushed up her back to rest on the back of her neck and gently combed through her hair. It was odd, the new bliss that consumed her mind. But odd in the best of ways as they broke apart, breathless and happy. Nepeta pushed her brunette hair behind her ear and said, "So…call you?"

"Okay," he said, "See you!"

"Bye!" she called, waving. It that wasn't perfect, she didn't know what was.

She was applying to colleges that year, seven total. She was probably going to double major in theater and biology, which might be weird, but those were her passions.

Her life was pretty consistent for a long time; she and Alex went on dates once or twice a week, she hung out with her friends at lunch, she submitted applications to her colleges of choice, she did homework and tests, things happened.

Then Prom.

Prom wasn't the problem. It was that Animé Central, her last ACen of living in Chicago, was the same weekend. She and her con friends had agreed that they would share a hotel room already, not to mention that this was possibly her _last_ ACen ever. She couldn't miss it!

She texted her con buddy Kate to ask for help.

_hi kate! prom is the same weekend as acen and my boyfriends already asked me. what do i do?_

_R u kidding me, Liechtenstein? Go 2 Prom Friday and ACen Saturday & Sunday. _

_i guess that shouldve been obvious_

_It's OK_

_see you there!_

_C U!_

Nepeta facepalmed very emphatically. That really should have been obvious.

She had all her cosplays ready. She was going to be Liechtenstein and Maka and possibly Canada. She had dress for Prom, too. It was short, strapless (please don't get mad, Mom), and olive-green. She was ridiculously excited and nervous and anxious and giddy. She and a few of his friends and her friends were all going to dinner at some fancy restaurant before, and she was staying in her room in the ACen hotel for the night. Gog, she was nervous.

She had the oddest friend, and Alex did too; they all squeezed into a party bus and plugged in someone's iPod to the least mainstream music she'd ever heard. And she loved it.

When it was her turn to play music, she couldn't help but play some animé fangirl songs.

The dinner was nice and all (she loved steak and mashed potatoes), and so were the pictures, but the best was the actual dance.

The best was dancing right next to Alex. The best was the sweet, probably laced punch that made her feel lightheaded and giggly (definitely spiked). The best was the dance music that made her want to _dance_. The best was the slow dance songs when she and Alex danced and they were so close together that she could feel his (slightly too fast) pulse and his breath on her skin. The best was the way he smiled nervously every time he asked her to dance, as if she'd say no. The best was the long, long kiss they shared as the last song. The best was the way she could _feel_ the whole thing without her senses, the way her sister sometimes described _feeling_ music after she went deaf.

The worst wasn't the car rides. The worst wasn't the popular bitches who were there. The worst wasn't the way they had to smile forever to take pictures. The worst wasn't even when Olivia from back in eighth fucking grade tried to get Nepeta to spill punch on her dress.

The worst was what happens after Prom.

She wasn't thinking about that.

All her friends and their dates left together, and it didn't take her long to realize exactly where they were going. Her knees turned to water, or perhaps soda was a better description, because her legs felt full of pins and needles. It was getting late, nearly midnight. _Oh gog, oh gog, oh gog. Shit. Fucking shit._

"So…uh…Nepeta?" Alex asked, as the last song ended and people began to trickle out. "I…uh…I was wondering…"

She nodded. What was she supposed to do? It was like her entire mind was screaming at her, and all saying different things. She knew that of her female friends, Terezi and Vriska and Aradia would tell her to go for it. Jade and Kanaya and Feferi would advise against it. She didn't have a clue as to Rose. Karkat would tell her she should, Equius would give her a lecture for even considering it.

With her friends' advice useless, she thought of other people she trusted.

As she wondered what to do, her sister's advice came back to her. _Wait until you can see it,_ Meulin had said once back in middle school, right after she became deaf. _Wait until you can see the future with him. When you can imagine spending the rest of your life with him, marrying him, having children, coming home from work and seeing him, when that image is sharp in your mind, then it's okay. Just...be careful_. She closed her eyes and pictured it. She pictured two small children with him at the father. She imagined coming home after a long night at the theater and seeing his face when he greeted her, kissed her, said goodnight to her. She found the image in her mind of their marriage, him and her exchanging vows, everything. She could feel the future they could have.

She thought about it a bit more.

She was ready.

She had a hotel room for tonight and tomorrow night because of ACen. She'd reserved far enough in advance that she had one in the main hotel that she was sharing with three people tonight, though not until two AM (she was certain of that), and probably more the next night. But it was only midnight. That left two hours.

"We could...go to my hotel room," Nepeta said, blushing a shade of crimson that bordered on overripe tomato. "It'll be empty until two AM."

"Really?" he asked.

She nodded, taking his hand. "Come on," she said, leading him to the room she'd reserved. (she'd checked in before Prom, just in case). He followed her into her room, closing and locking the door behind him.

When Nepeta's anime friends came to the room at 2 in the morning (luckily with no one drunk), she and Alex were feigning sleep on seperate beds. Kate fell asleep on the floor, Natalie on the couch, and Edward on the armchair. They'd figure out something better the next day.

"NEPETA!" Kate shouted, startling Nepeta from her happy slumber. "Come on, we're doing the makeup."

Once the three girls were alone in the bathroom, Kate turned to Nepeta and said, "So?"

"So what?" Nepeta asked, trying to sound innocent.

"So, who's the new guy? Last I checked, this room was for four of us, not five. And I do seem to remember our innocent little Liechtenstein having a boyfriend."

"Shut up," Nepeta muttered, half embarrassed and half still exhilarated.

"You and him…" Natalie began, pausing to drop her voice. "You and him did it?"

"Mind your own business," Nepeta said delicately, staring into the mirror as she brushed on some blush.

"You did!" Kate exclaimed.

"Spill," Natalie ordered. "Come on, we're con buddies!" And it was true. The four of them were convention friends; they only saw each other at cons and through tumblr. The best kind of friends to confide in. Nepeta's resolve dissolved and she did, in fact, spill.

"It was the single best moment of my life," she confessed. Her mind deluged her with random, sharp memories; his lips on hers, bodies entangled, his face right next to hers, the heat, the pain, the bliss.

Natalie gave her a significant look, applying some lipstick for Belarus. Kate, who was pulling her wig cap on for America, smiled deviously. "Want to give us the details?"

"No!" Nepeta exclaimed. "It's not like the two of you are so pure."

Kate smiled again, pulling her wig on over the wig cap and sticking in a couple bobby pins. "S'okay," she said. "I didn't tell you guys my first time."

"Thank you," Nepeta sighed, pulling on her own wig. Natalie was lucky; she had the perfect hair for Belarus.

The three girls emerged from the bathroom to see Edward in his England cosplay (they always coordinated) and Alex wearing Nepeta's Canada sweatshirt. "He said I could be Canada," Alex said, confused. His nerdom extended only into the world of science.

"Just talk quiet and act really polite," Nepeta said. Then she smiled the smile only her con friends ever saw, that grin that could only be followed by entering a convention. "_Allons-y_!"


	6. Freshmen

**A/N: I was actually terrified of posting that last chapter, so thanks to everyone who read it! Once again, I'm so sorry for the long update, but school is really stressful this year. I've mostly been typing this during Creative Writing workshop time. Zero is named in honor of my best friend's black cat when I was about three or four. **

Nepeta had a really bad feeling about Marina from the second she met her roommate. The other girl had long, black hair that was crimped and light blue eyes. Her skin was Seattle-pale and she was frowning. Nepeta had brought all her favorite animé posters and plushies, not to mention her extensive cosplay collection. How could she leave any of that behind? Those items contained her best memories.

"Um…" Marina said, examining Nepeta's Fullmetal Alchemist poster. "What is _that_?"

"It's Fullmetal Alchemist," Nepeta explained. "One of my favorite animés."

"And that?"

"Hetalia."

"What about that one?"

"Fruits Basket. Another animé."

"So...you're into animé," Marina stated, and Nepeta didn't miss the note of disgust in her new roommate's voice.

This was going to be a long year.

She'd chosen Carleton. Of the seven schools she'd applied to, she'd been accepted into three. Of those, she'd chosen this school. She'd been hoping for a good roommate, but she supposed she got who she got.

The best thing about college was that she was able to talk to her sister much more now that they were in the same time zone (Meulin went to a college in Missouri). In fact, her first night at college, she Skyped her sister.

"Meulin!" she exclaimed the second her sister answered.

"Hey there, little miss Kitty-Cat," Meulin shouted back.

"Keep it down," Nepeta said.

"Is your roommate mean?" Meulin asked.

"No, she's fine," Nepeta answered, well aware that Marina was still in the room. "In fact, she's right here."

"Oh! Can I meet her?" Meulin asked excitedly.

"Sure," Nepeta said reluctantly. "Give me a sec." She picked up the laptop and walked over to Marina. "My sister wants to meet you," she said.

Marina nodded. "What's her name?"

"Meulin. She's deaf."

Marina nodded as Nepeta turned the computer to her roommate. "Meulin, this is Marina. Marina, my sister Meulin."

"Nice to meet you!" Meulin shouted.

"Nice to meet you, too," Marina responded, nodding her head and giving the older girl a funny look. Meulin's mess of thick, dark hair and unnaturally bright green eyes did make a strange combination, although nearly everyone said she was gorgeous. Meulin smiled and said, "So you're my sister's roommate? I hope you two become great friends!" Nepeta winced and tried to give her sister a "cut it out" look from behind Marina. Meulin nodded almost imperceptibly. "Well, I've got to go! Have a fun year, Nepeta!"

"You too, Meulin," Nepeta answered, ending the call. She'd text Meulin and explain about the anime thing later.

Alex, who had gone to Cal Tech, was the next person to Skype. "Nepeta? Can you hear me?" he shouted through the heavy static.

"Yeah!" she yelled back, earning her a very pissed-off look from Marina. "Hold on a sec." She walked around the room, trying to find a place with better Internet. For some reason, all the way in the corner by the window had the best reception. She sat cross-legged on the floor and balanced the laptop between her knees. "Better?" she asked. Her own image and sound had improved.

"Much," he affirmed, smiling. She still couldn't get enough of that smile. She wished she could just kiss him right now, just jump through the computer screen to where he was.

"How's your day been?" she asked. "Your roommate?"

"My roommate's cool," Alex said. "Engineering major and everything."

"A couple of science geeks, then," Nepeta said.

"What about you?" Alex asked.

"My roommate's name is Marina. She's…" Nepeta glanced around the room. Marina had left, probably to run some errand. "I have a feeling we're not going to get along. I dunno…I just have a bad feeling about her."

Alex nodded sympathetically. "I'm sorry about that," he said. He turned around suddenly, as if hearing something. "Sorry, that's my dad," he said. "Gotta go, see you soon!"

"Love you," she said.

"Love you too," he responded, closing the call. She smiled as she closed her laptop and put it away. He really could be the one for her.

Although she didn't have a car (cars weren't allowed on campus), she made it to most of her classes on time. Except for Bio 101, which was just at the fucking far corner of the Earth. But it was also her favorite class, so she double-timed her pedaling to bike to that class on time.

Her room was divided precisely down the middle, with her own side full of animé posters, a messy cosplay collection, and a bunch of other stuff that was useful strewn around the place. She didn't have time to clean up; her desk was a chaotic mess and her floor was worse.

But Marina was a neat freak. Her side of the room was completely organized and perfect, everything in place. And that wasn't so bad; Nepeta didn't mind. As long as Marina kept her neat to herself, Nepeta would keep her messy to herself.

Marina did sometimes try to pick up the place, but she never got far. Nepeta's natural tendency was towards mess and a system that made sense to her and only her.

Life went on. Days began and ended, the sun rose and set. The warmth of the summer dissipated and transformed slowly into a freezing-cold, very snowy Minnesota winter. It stopped being practical to bike to class, so she left early and walked instead. She had her thick winter coat and everything, so she was ready for the weather.

When it snowed, the snowflakes caught in her eyelashes and her hair before melting and letting rivulets of water trickle down her hair and face. The cold froze her hair once it was wet, literally froze it so her short, thick hair became a solid, cold mass. She had to take a hot shower or stand near the heater to thaw her head again. But she didn't mind. She liked the winter.

She and Alex were still close, of course. He'd visited her once, and she'd visited him twice. She also saw Equius sometimes, and she often Skyped with Meulin and her mother.

But Alex was really the person who she could always rely on and always love.

And that was why her breakup with Alex hurt even more than she feared.

They'd been working long-distance for four months at that point, over Skype and emails and Pesterchum. She'd seen him three times and every time, he was affectionate as ever.

Her roommate, Marina, was the first to ask why she was sobbing.

"It's just…nothing important," she choked out.

"Then why are you crying?"

Nepeta considered her options. Her habit of saying that it was "nothing" was getting the better of her. She had to talk to someone.

"Alex broke up with me," she said.

"Oh, I'm so sorry," Marina began, sitting next to Nepeta, who had her arms wrapped around a cat plushie she'd gotten when she was little. "But don't you think you should've waited?"

"What?" Nepeta asked.

"He's the one you cashed your V-card in with, right? Well, you should've waited until after marriage."

"Why the hell would you say that?" Nepeta asked, wounded. "Now? I was half-drunk from that damn spiked punch!"

"Because maybe you wouldn't've gotten your heart broken if you hadn't," Marina said superiorly. "And I've got to go to class now," she added, leaving the room.

Still clutching the cat plushie, Nepeta pulled out her laptop. She could Skype Equius and talk to him. Gog, her roommate was a bitch.

He picked up right away; how could he not? She was infinitely glad to see is familiar face. "H-H-Hi," she stuttered, still crying.

"Nepeta, are you injured? Has someone attacked you? Are you in the hospital? Do I have to fly to Minnesota immediately?" Equius asked in rapid-fire succession.

"I'm fine, Equius," she answered. "You don't have to come here. Don't worry. It's just…Alex broke up with me."

Equius, although he wasn't all that great at expressing emotion, looked truly sympathetic. "I am so sorry, Nepeta. He did not know what he had."

"Thanks, Equius," she said, offering him a watery smile. "I needed that."

"I will be visiting this weekend," Equius informed her. "Would you like me to bring anything?"

"No, but thanks," Nepeta answered. She'd almost forgotten Equius's visit. "I just need to talk it out."

"I will listen to you," Equius stated. She could believe it, too. He'd listen when she babbled incoherently about it.

"I mean, he flew here from Cal Tech and we were out to dinner and it was really sweet and romantic like always, but then he said how we weren't going to work out long distance but that he still liked me and then how he wanted to be friends but I don't want to be friends with him because it would hurt too much and it's just that he flew here because I deserved it but what the fuck is that supposed to mean I don't even…" She trailed off and buried her face in the cat plushie, habitually trying to hide the tears. Gog, what middle and high school did to a person.

Equius was still listening. "It's just…like, is it okay to be upset over a breakup? Cuz there's all this about how women are supposed to be all strong and shit…but it's okay for a guy to cry over something like this? I don't even know if it's okay to be crying...is it okay for me to be crying about this? It's like...is anyone allowed to be weak anymore? What's wrong with being weak?…And Marina pretty much said it was my fault, cuz you know about him and me…"

Equius seemed to take that as his cue to talk. "She is wrong," he stated simply. "This was in no manner your fault and you have every right to have any emotional response to this."

"Thanks, Equius," she said. "You're the best."

She almost detected half a smile on his stony face. She heard a knock and turned around. "Must be Kate," she thought aloud. "I've got to go, Equius, and thank you so much."

"You are welcome," he replied. She pressed the End Call button and answered the door.

It was not Kate but Marina who stood there, looking abashed. "I forgot my key," she admitted. Nepeta grabbed it off the table by the door and thrust it at her unfortunate roommate.

Collecting herself, Nepeta asked Marina, "Why are you so against premarital and gay marriage? Is it a religious thing? Cuz I was raised Christian and my church was actively for gay marriage."

"I'm not religious, "Marina responded. "Not much, anyways. I just don't think it's right to have premarital. It only ends in heartbreak. And…my aunt got pregnant at seventeen."

"But it doesn't make heartbreak any worse," Nepeta said. "Alex and me…it would've hurt a lot anyways. And if you're safe, why should it be such a problem?"

Marina shrugged. "I also think marriage is for just a man and a woman."

"How can you say that?" Nepeta asked, shocked. "Marriage is for two people who love each other! The point of marriage is commitment and promising love to each other forever! Why should it matter what gender they are? I think you should fall for who someone is, not their body!"

Marina clearly had no response for that, because she simply looked scandalized and angry and walked over to her side of the room. Nepeta decided that Marina simply held several very conservative and very wrong opinions and sat on her bed, trying to think of ways to soothe her throat, still burning from the tears.

She didn't leave her room for the whole weekend. She had enough food for the two days and she didn't have any weekend classes. The only event was Kate coming over on Saturday evening with buttered movie popcorn, chocolate, and a stack of romcoms. The two old convention friends sat in the room (Marina had gone home to St. Paul for the weekend) and watched the movies and ate too much junk food.

It wasn't long before Kate, ever the energetic (she reminded Nepeta a bit of Feferi), insisted that Nepeta come to the next meeting of the campus's cosplay club.

"It'll be fun!" she insisted. "The president is really cool and everyone's really nice, I promise! There's animé and Doctor Who and everyone! Please come?"

Nepeta, who still cried some nights, wasn't feeling up to it. She hadn't even considered her cosplays since the breakup two weeks ago. Before then, she'd planned on sewing a Revolutionary War America outfit, maybe a Britain one too. She'd also been considering a peg doll from Doctor Who outfit. Although she wasn't much of a Whovian, she did know the general plot of the show and it would be a challenge.

"Please, Nepeta? You'll have help and everything! You've barely gone out in two weeks!"

Nepeta sighed. "Fine," she conceded. She'd never imagined that the friends she'd made at one of her first-ever conventions could become so influential.

So that Tuesday, she gathered up all her fabric, sewing machine, thread, needles, wigs, and everything else she'd amassed in her sizeable cosplay collection and packed it away in her sewing bag. She grabbed her key and left the room, hoping that Marina had remembered her key this time.

"Hi Nepeta!" Kate exclaimed when Nepeta walked into the room with her awkwardly huge sewing bag. "Come on, I saved you a seat!" Kate was at a table with some other freshmen.

"Wow, this is all yours?" one of them asked. "Hi, I'm Amber."

"Hi, I'm Nepeta," Nepeta said, just a little shyly. "Yeah, it's all mine."

"You sew by hand?" another person asked.

Nepeta nodded. "Sometimes. For big stuff I use this machine I found at a garage sale once."

"Cool!" the person responded. "I'm Kyle, by the way. This is Lila, Thomas, and Emily."

"Nice to meet you guys," Nepeta said. "So what're you guys working on?"

"This _coat_," Amber answered. "Damn fabric is too thick and it's taking forever. I don't have a machine."

"You could borrow mine," Nepeta said.

"Really? Thanks!" Amber exclaimed.

"Yeah, anytime," Nepeta affirmed, feeling more confident now that she was around people who shared her passions. "I'm in Davis, room 216. You know, it's the damnedest thing; I always end up in room with the numbers two, one, and six or four, one, and three."

"Funny how stuff like that happens," Lila commented.

"Yeah," Thomas said.

Emily looked around the circle of sewing teenagers. "I don't sew stuff," she said. "I do everything but the sewing. Hell, I've been working on my own brand of face paint, but I can't sew."

"Want to learn?" Nepeta asked.

"Nah, it's good," Emily said. "It's not like it makes me any less of a cosplayer or something."

Nepeta nodded, turning back to her sewing and immediately pricking her finger on her sharpest needle. "Gogdammit," she hissed through clenched teeth, blowing on the sore spot as if that would help.

"Thimble?" Thomas offered, holding out a small thumb-protector.

"Thanks," she said gratefully. Why she'd never bought her own thimbles, she didn't know.

She went to cosplay club every Tuesday after. Conversation ranged from the trivial ("So what'd you have for lunch?" "Just a PB and J.") to the deep ("I think that the episode when Rose leaves shows how much trouble the Doctor has expressing his emotions." "Maybe it's a parallel to our society today.") and everything in between.

On this particular snowy Tuesday two weeks before winter break (she briefly missed Sollux and his obsession with the number two), the discussion turned to majors.

"Classics," Lila answered without hesitation. "I'd like to go into literature, maybe publishing."

"I was thinking of plant biology," Thomas speculated. "You know, go into botany or something."

"High-energy physics," Emily said. "I've always wanted to work at the Large Hadron Collider." Nepeta, remembering Jade's ambitions back in eighth grade, smiled nostalgically.

"Liberal arts or whatever major you choose for voice acting," Kyle said after a brief pause. "Go into radio or something. Maybe be a voice actor. That'd be cool."

"Education," Kate answered. "I'm gonna be a kindergarten teacher or something."

"Genetics," Amber stated. "Especially genetic diseases. Because my grandma has Alzheimer's."

"Oh, I'm sorry," Nepeta sympathized.

"What about you, Nepeta?" Kate asked. "I've never asked."

"Biology and acting," Nepeta answered. "I sorta can't choose, you know?"

Kyle nodded. "I might still do prehistory."

Conversation continued, but Nepeta shifted her focus from words to interactions. She watched Amber avoiding eye contact with Kyle, clearly trying to hold normal conversation and failing. She kept a careful eye on Lila and Kate, but also on Thomas and Kate. Kate was somewhere in the middle of the sexual orientation spectrum, so both pairings were possible. At the present, Lila and Kate seemed more likely. Maybe she'd be seeing them in the Starbucks she worked at soon. It seemed that every couple went to the Starbucks at least once, and she wasn't sure why. But it was fun, watching couples come and go. It was always fun.

The spring semester finals were the single most terrifying tests she'd ever taken. No, strike that, ACTs and SATs were worse. But these tests were up there.

She hadn't been in Chem/Phys (a two-year course), which had a cumulative final at the end of two years, so she wasn't used to the cumulative finals. She stayed up late, cramming facts and dates and formulas into her head with stupid mnemonics and ridiculous little jingles. It was horrible and nerve-wracking, and to make it worse she was on her period at the time. So she was also grumpy, craving chocolate and salt, and prone to start sobbing into her textbooks.

This was going to be a long couple of weeks.

She hated the smell of blood. It wasn't just a bad smell, and it wasn't just that she hated her period (though both of those were true), it was the memories it brought back. It was the memories of bleeding to death on the freezing cold, rough pavement. It was that salty, disgusting smell that pervaded her memories of that horrible day in sophomore year. It was the way that when she smelled blood, she remembered every damn detail of the way she crawled across the sharp asphalt towards Equius, the way her heart fluttered and her lungs worked far too fast, desperate for oxygen to get to her brain. She didn't know why Gamzee had spared her head, and she was astounded almost every day that she could still function. The only reminders of the attack were the scar on her left side and the way the fingers on her right hand weren't as nimble as they used to be.

"Sorry, but can you take out the trash?" Nepeta asked Marina. Her head was spinning and a curtain was closing on her vision. She could tell that if she had to deal with that smell for one more second, she'd black out.

"Why should I?" Marina snapped. "Seriously, get it yourself."

"I can't…" Nepeta trailed off as she lost consciousness.

She came to on her bed, Marina shaking her shoulders and shouting, "Nepeta! NEPETA!"

"Wha—hi," she said, shaking her head.

"What the hell was that about?" Marina asked.

"It's…the smell," Nepeta tried to explain. "The smell of blood. I can't stand it."

"I don't like it either, but I don't pass out from it," Marina said. "Are you alright?"

"There was just…some stuff happened. It was a while ago. But it's just sort of a long story."

Marina just nodded.

Nepeta hated thinking about the blood.

She went home for the summer, of course. She and Kate took the train home together, although they lived on opposite sides of the burbs. Nepeta got off second, and for a long moment she was terrified that no one would be there. She'd gone home for Christmas and on a few weekends and spring break, but this was for a good couple months. And she'd be going to AWC with all Edward and Natalie and Kate. They planned to all go to ACen in sophomore year, too, now that they'd gotten used to college. ACen and AWC were going to be their traditions, the way they stayed in touch. Not to mention that all the others, the ones whose real names Nepeta didn't know, would be with them.

"Nepeta!" her mother called. "Let me help you with your things, dear. Oh, it's so nice to see you! How are you?"

"I'm great, Mom," Nepeta said, hugging her mother. "How have you been? Is Meulin home yet?"

"She's home, too, love," her mother said. "Oh, I've missed you! The house is so empty without you two!"

Nepeta smiled, hugging her mother again. It was so nice to be home.

It was a good summer, an excellent summer. She stayed home with her mother, and though she helped with house chores (her mother now lived alone with two cats; how could the two sisters leave their mother to do all the housework?), it was a relaxing time. She hadn't seen Meulin or her mother in ages; she and her sister were never free on the same weekends and their spring breaks didn't match up.

The cats, her cats, were as friendly/aloof as ever. Mimi, the sweetheart calico, came up to her and practically begged to be petted. Zero, the black cat, was completely aloof to the two sisters coming home.

Her mother made them steak and mashed potatoes, their favorite dish from family dinners when they were little. Her sister turned on the subtitles on the TV and hugged everyone goodnight every night. Nepeta locked the front door every night and helped her sister clean up after dinner.

All her old friends were home for the summer. All of sixteen of them went to the pool, to the movies, to the park, just like when they were in high school. Nostalgia for when she didn't have to support herself (just a year ago) flooded her every time the friends convened at another old haunt.

They were her family. Her old friends, her convention friends, her sister and mother and aunt and blood family. All of them.

She missed her family.


	7. Middleclassmen (If That's a Word)

A/N: Thanks to everyone who's reading this! Please comment/review because that means a lot to me!

Nepeta groaned and slapped the alarm clock. The familiar song she'd set her alarm to wasn't as nice to hear first thing in the morning. Normally, hearing Caramelldansen would make her want to jump out of her seat and start dancing. But at seven AM, not so much. Not to mention that it was a frigid day in the middle of a cold Minnesota January. Her normal sleep cycle called for about six hours of sleep at night and several naps throughout the day. Trying to keep a "normal" schedule was really messing with her head.

Nepeta put on a pair of jeans and comfortable shirt with the ASPCA logo on it. She slipped her favorite necklace over her head, put on her favorite hat, and checked her wish anklet. The same one she'd had since seventh grade.

It still hadn't fallen off.

She made a bowl of Froot Loops for breakfast and drank a glass of orange juice. Then she brushed her teeth.

Which was a really bad idea.

She spit out the toothpaste and washed out her mouth with water. Then she brushed her teeth again. She threw her backpack over her shoulder and headed for her first class.

She had an early class in romantic literature (the time period, not the genre—everyone asked her that) every Tuesday and Thursday. It was the first Tuesday of classes second semester and she was already tired. She stumbled into the classroom and plopped down somewhere, without noticing who she was next to.

"Nepeta?"

She jumped about a mile in the air. "K-Karkitty?" she asked in disbelief. This was too much for seven thirty AM.

"Yeah. Haven't seen you in, what, a year and a half?"

"Y-Yeah. Why…why are you here?"

"Uh…I went to gogdamn George Washington cuz of Terezi…and, uh, she sorta dumped me for Dave…and I fucking hated it there, so I fucking transferred here cuz this was my first fucking choice."

"Oh! That's nice!" she said. She hated to admit that she still fostered feelings for him, even after Alex. She reached down and felt the wish bracelet on her left ankle. Still there. It wasn't some magical difference.

"Yeah, I guess," he shrugged.

"You seem sorta down," she said.

"Yeah, well, it was a fucking bad breakup, what do you fucking expect?" he snapped.

She shied away briefly, but came back with a very sarcastic, "So-rry."

"Oh gog, I'm sorry," he apologized. "Like I said."

"Bad breakup," she finished for him.

"Yeah."

"Well, if you want to do something, some friends and my boyfriend and I are going to the movies tomorrow. We're meeting at the Century theater around seven," she said, gauging his reaction carefully.

"Oh," he said, but he didn't sound disappointed or happy. "Uh…sure?"

"Great!" Nepeta said.

"So…who's your boyfriend? You never mention him in your fucking long emails."

"First off, I haven't seen you in more than a year, so yes, the emails are long. Second, his name is Henry and he's tall and blonde and he's got green eyes. He's just dreamy. He's in this class, actually. But he's always a little late." She _did_ have a boyfriend named Henry, but she might have been slightly exaggerating how she felt about him…

Just then, a tall boy with blonde hair and green eyes walked in. Nepeta waved cheerily and Henry walked over to sit next to her. She kissed him and said, "This is my friend Karkat. Karkat, this is Henry."

"Nice to meet you," Henry said, holding out his hand. Karkat took it and shook once. "You too," he said tersely.

"Nep's told me all about you," Henry said. Nepeta smiled at his pet name for her. "How you've been friends since you were five and everything."

"Yeah, I've known him since we were in kindergarten!" Nepeta exclaimed. She knew she was acting weird, but exhaustion had never been her friend.

Karkat crossed his arms and looked away grumpily. Alright, what was going on with him? He wasn't exactly the most outgoing of people, but he didn't act this rude around her friends.

"So the movie offer is still open," she added.

"I'll pass," Karkat answered, opening his laptop and beginning to type.

_Don't get your hopes up_, she reminded herself. _He's probably just tired. You know he doesn't sleep enough_.

But she persisted in trying to get him to go somewhere sometime, usually a cosplay club thing, because her cosplay club friends were awesome. It wasn't until mid-March that she finally talked him into going (of all things) bowling with the club.

"It's cheap, I promise, and it'll just be other cosplayers there. They'll all be nice, I swear! I told them you were coming and they all said you sounded cool."

"Okay. Fine. But just this once," he conceded.

She smiled brightly and hugged him. "See you Friday!" she called, jogging to her room.

"Kate!" she shouted. "Karkat's coming bowling on Friday!"

"_The_ Karkat?" Kate asked. "The one who you said you've crushed on since eighth grade?"

"Yes, the Karkat!" Nepeta exclaimed excitedly. "Except I sorta told him I'd already told everyone…"

"You really talked yourself into a corner this time," Kate acknowledged. "But don't worry! We're meeting tomorrow, remember? So we can tell everyone then."

"Oh yeah! Thanks a million, Kate," Nepeta said, smiling like an idiot. "Gog, I'm so nervous."

"Why? It's obvious he likes you!" Kate teased. She shared math with Nepeta and Karkat.

"Oh yeah right," Nepeta retaliated. "He always acts that grumpy."

"No, but with Henry, he's always annoyed."

"Oh. 'Bout that. Okay. I sorta want to break up with Henry. But last time I broke up with someone, not Alex, it didn't go so great."

"What happened?"

"I sorta walked away right after he shouted that he loved me and didn't speak to him again."

"I thought you were the romance expert!"

"Not when it comes to my own life!"

Kate smiled and spun around in her desk chair. "You could just be like, 'It's not working out, we really don't fit?'"

"I dunno, that seems insensitive."

"Hell, I suck at breakups."

"Oh come on! You've had, what, two girlfriends and a boyfriend since college started, and not one has been sobbing or some shit!"

"Except Joanna."

"That's different," Nepeta said. Joanna had been…different. It was not something that was discussed.

Kate shrugged, her ever-present smile sliding off her face for just long enough to say. "Yeah. Different." Her face clicked back into happy mode and she continued. "Anyways. You could try just being like… 'Hey, Henry. So, there's something I want to talk to you about. I don't think we're right for each other.' And he'll be all like, 'What the shit, are you breaking up with me?' And you can be like, 'Yes. This isn't going to work out.' And he'll probably be like…"

"I got it, Kate," Nepeta said. "Thanks."

"Sooo…when're you gonna ask out Karkat?"

"Kate!"

"I am one hundred percent serious, Liechtenstein. You've gotta ask him out at some point."

"No I don't!"

"Then why break up with Henry?"

"Because we've only been going out for three months and he's pressuring me to do shit!"

Kate stopped. "What?" she asked dangerously. It was a tone that said, "Do I need to murder someone?" It was a tone Equius used often enough that Nepeta recognized it from other people.

"No, I don't mean like that," Nepeta insisted. "I just mean that he's been asking a lot and I don't want to. He's not pressuring me or anything."

"Drop him like a hot potato."

"What the hell?"

"You heard me."

"No, I was wondering why you said that."

"Okay. Whatever. But seriously!"

"Okay. I've got romantic lit tomorrow morning. I'll do it then."

"You better."

This was definitely because of Joanna.

Nepeta crossed her fingers before class the next morning and silently hoped that this would go better than the whole deal with James. That had been just humiliating. Honestly, she was a little afraid that Henry would flip his shit and attack her or something. Maybe she should wait until Karkat was there. Normally, she'd wait for Equius, but he wasn't around anymore.

She missed him sorely.

Karkat arrived early, as always. He'd probably woken up at five AM and gone to sleep around midnight. She really had to talk him into doing something about that. He sat next to her, plugged in his ancient laptop, and started typing.

"What're you typing?" she asked.

"Screenplay," he answered. "Director is too much work; I'm gonna go into script writing."

She nodded. "I was thinking that I'd like to be a vet."

He looked up from his computer and up at her curiously. "I thought you said actress? Hell, you've done acting since we were kids."

"I know. But I'd really love to work with animals; I used to volunteer at the shelter and everything."

"Yeah, I remember," Karkat said. "Why the fuck are you here so early?"

"Uh…nothing. So. Scriptwriting? Sounds cool!"

"Yeah, it is. I'm not going to listen to your fucking 'nothing'. I got fucking enough of that in high school."

She shifted awkwardly. He was right; she'd spent half of high school nothing was wrong, and the other half stuck in situations that made everything wrong. "Fine. I'm breaking up with Henry and I'm sorta scared that he'll flip and attack me."

"Fuck," Karkat said, shocked. "Why?"

"Uh…it's not important?" she tried.

"Yes it fucking is, moron."

"Cuz he sorta tried to get me to…do stuff when I didn't want to."

"Fucking shit, I will not let him fucking near you."

"Oh my gog, calm down," Nepeta said, rolling her eyes. "Seriously. It's fine. I can deal with this one on my own."

Karkat gave her a look that was exactly identical to the one he'd given her back in seventh grade in acting class every Saturday.

Henry's arrival saved her from answering. "I'll be right back."

No need to panic, right? No need at all to panic. Just…calm, cool-headed, look together. Be like Lila. Lila was the most levelheaded person Nepeta had ever met. _Be like that_, she thought.

"Henry," she said. "I need to talk to you."

"What is it, babe?" he asked. His voice sounded _slimy_. How had she never noticed that before?

"This isn't working out. We're just not working out. I know it sounds cliché, but it's not you, it's me. I just feel like we're not going to work."

"Why?" he asked, and she couldn't tell if his tone was pained or angry and that was terrifying.

"Because…we don't get along. I feel like you don't listen when I talk to you and you sometimes talk when I'm not listening. I think we should break up."

"What?" he asked, much louder, and it was definitely angry this time. But Nepeta no longer felt the need to make herself be level-headed or calm or subtly position her feet to defend. She was doing it all on her own. She wasn't afraid anymore, not much anyways.

"I think we should break up," she reiterated, looking him in eye.

He looked livid. "Fine! FINE!" he yelled. "It's not like I ever loved you or anything."

She nodded and walked away.

"I'm going to kill you!" he screamed. "I'm going to fucking kill you!"

Oh, there's where that fear went.

Karkat looked at her searchingly. "Okay, what the fuck do you plan to do about that?"

"If he shows up at my room, I'll punch his lights out," she said calmly. So what if she was barely keeping it together? No one had to know.

"Are you sure?"

"You've known me since we were five. Do you think I couldn't?"

"You sure as hell could. But would you?"

She paused. Would she knock him out, possibly give him a concussion or worse? "Only if I had to," she responded carefully. "If he tried to kill me."

He nodded and turned back to his screenplay.

That night, Nepeta was on red alert. She had one eye on her textbook and her notes and the other on the door. She felt sick to her stomach. What if he did come to…to kill her? She'd been through that before and had no plans to let it happen again. The dread was the worst. It brought back memories of that damn _smell_, of the lights, of the dark. Of the fear that she wouldn't wake up. That would not ever happen again.

It was about midnight when there was a knock, a set of four knocks to be precise. Kate looked up. Nepeta stood from her Ikea desk chair and walked slowly to answer the quadruple knock.

His breath smelled like beer and smoke. _Shit_, she thought._ He's drunk_. She held her math textbook in front of her as a shield and said pleasantly, "You came for your history book, right? Hold on, I'll go get it."

He didn't move an inch.

"I'm gonna kill you!" he slurred. "I'm gonna fucking kill you!"

She was shaking, but she stood her ground in front of him. He was a good foot or more taller than her and that was terrifying. This was one of those times when she _hated_ being short. She'd kill for two extra inches to her height.

He struck out with his right fist, but she blocked his blow. He tried to kick, but she dodged away, pulling out her phone and tossing it to a stunned Kate. Kate caught the phone and dialed 9-1-1 with shaking hands.

"Hello? Hello? My friend's boyfriend is trying to kill her! In our room!"

He screamed in fury and slapped her across the face. It was loud and unexpected and Nepeta knew it would leave an ugly bruise. And it gave her the anger to fight back.

He'd backed her into the room and Kate had run out onto the fire escape. She was still fighting him off with everything she'd learned in self-defense and Meulin's karate classes when the elder was ten and the younger eight. But then he pulled out a knife

_Fuck._

It was just a penknife, but plenty enough to maim or even kill. "He's got a fucking knife!" Nepeta shrieked. Kate was talking fast and confused into the phone and Nepeta could hear sirens in the distance. Horrible memories of utter pain, of crimson blood, of that damn smell, invaded her mind as she just kept fighting.

She had an idea that really came out of nowhere. She reached out and grabbed his wrist, the one connected to the hand holding the knife. She gripped as tight as she could, squeezing the nerves and forcing him to drop the knife. "Not—again," she grunted, punching him in the gut. He doubled over, clutching his wrist, and she gingerly kicked the knife away.

It wasn't long before he stood again to fight. But she was ready this time. She struck when she had to, dodging away from all of his attacks, anger burning in her whole body. She was full of adrenalin, her blood still full of the chemical, when the police arrived. Assault and battery combined with underage drinking (maybe it hadn't been smoke; there was no drug offense) bought him a hefty fine and (she thought) some jail time.

She thought he deserved it.

The swollen bruise on her left cheek that bled into her eyelid was too dark to cover up. She tried, too; no one could accuse her of not trying. She piled on concealer and foundation and blush, but there was still a shadow of the black and purple swelling.

No one noticed, or maybe no one pointed it out. Except one.

"What the fuck happened last night?" he asked loudly. She glared at him. "Sorry, sorry," he said, backing down.

"He tried to kill me," she said tersely. "Like…like in tenth grade."

"Oh. Uh…sorry?" he tried.

"'S'fine," she said. "Police caught him, plus he was drunk as fuck."

"If you're sure," he said warily.

"I'm sure. I'll be out of town this weekend anyways."

"What?"

"ACen, back in Chicago! Edward and Natalie and Kate and I are going."

"Hm," Karkat answered vaguely.

"Well, wish me luck at the Masquerade!" Nepeta grinned. "We're going to do the FACE family."

"That still means fucking nothing to me, no matter how many gogdamn times you fucking say it."

"France, America, Canada, England."

"Hm."

"Are you sleeping?"

"No!"

"Well, you're obviously not listening. I know I don't make sense to you, but am I really that boring?"

"Not at all. But there's this thing called fucking insomnia that I've had since I was fucking ten that can really fuck you over."

"I know, Karkitty. Get some sleep tonight, alright? Take care of yourself."

"Fine, fine, fucking whatever. Gog, paranoid much?"

"Yes. Because you need sleep."

"Okay. I said fine, dammit. So back to Chicago…just for the weekend?"

"Mm-hmm."

"On your own."

"I can stand up for myself!"

"I fucking know, jeez. I'm not the only around here who's gotta take care of themselves. If you're not back I'll call." There wasn't any venom in any of his angry words, like in eleventh grade when she burned the metal.

_Don't get your hopes up_.

As usual, Nepeta and Kate took the train home together. They bypassed their normal stops, instead heading straight for the Hyatt Regency O'Hare. They were the first to arrive, therefore they checked in and began changing for Friday night's convention.

On Saturday evening, Nepeta extracted her best cosplay things for the Masquerade. This was the first year she was going as a group with her best con buddies. Edward was England, obviously; Kate was America, no surprise there; and Natalie was France, because she had the best accent. That left Nepeta to assemble the best, most canon Canada cosplay she could.

On stage, she was ready. "I'm Canada," she nearly whispered, holding her hand-sewn Kumajirou close to her body. She could barely see through the cheap reading glasses perched on her nose. But she could smile, and she did. The rest of them finished the sketch and left the stage.

_Please, please win_.

She latched onto Natalie's hand on her left and Kate's on her right. Kate must be holding Edward's hand on her other side, too, squeezing with the white-knuckled, anxiety filled grip.

"Best in novice…" Gog, could they just get on with it? "Best craftsmanship…" Seriously, this should not take so long! Could they really put it off that long? "Best in group division…" Nepeta crossed her fingers. "Natalie Lumier, Edward Brown, Kate Zygerman, and Nepeta Leijon!"

_No way. _

_No fucking way_.

Kate pulled the four of them up on the stage to get their award. She smiled like a day-old light bulb, absolutely glowing. Natalie looked shocked; Edward was red-faced from laughter. Nepeta threw her arms around her friends and said, just loud enough for them and no one else to hear, "Good job, guys."

Leaving to go back to school was the saddest part.

About a week later, Nepeta was sitting at her desk, studying for spring finals, when her Etsy made some sort of notification. She was making progressively more money from selling costume and animé tokens online. Not nearly enough for her to quit her job at the coffee shop, but enough for a better wig or the nicer fabric or a new pair of costume shoes.

Another summer of mothers and sisters and house chore and Zero and Mimi. And Meulin's graduation, but that was different. Another "I can't believe I'm leaving my mother again," goodbye, because Nepeta's mom still stayed at home with the cats a rather lot.

Junior year was a bit less stressful the second time.

She was getting much closer to her desired major and to her desired career. She had an internship at the local vet's office that was going pretty well (except that there were three of them and one was this absolute _dick_ who refused to help anyone because he was simply too good) and she was doing decently in class.

Up until there was a huge blizzard in the middle of December. Nepeta got home and was halfway through her math homework when she turned to the window and couldn't see out. It was pure white, like a fresh sheet of paper. She couldn't even see the fire escape.

Where the hell was Lila?

The brunette girl joined Nepeta in their room a few minutes later. "Do we have bottled water? What about the heat? Is the power out?"

"We're in Minnesota," Nepeta reminded the Floridian girl. "Don't worry about it."

The lights flickered out.

"Okay, so if the power goes out, we just keep warm till it goes back on. I grew up in the snow; it'll be fine." This was honestly the only time Nepeta could recall ever seeing Lila loose her cool.

"Are you sure?"

"Positive."

The snow didn't stop for three days. Classes were canceled because no one could leave their rooms. She texted her friends, and everyone was alright. But no one really called, except for one.

"Are you alive?" Karkat shouted.

"Yes, I'm fine. Have you been sleeping?"

"We're about to fucking die and that's what you're worried about?"

"Yes."

"Yes, I've been fucking sleeping, gog."

"Good."

"Fine. I've gotta go."

"Bye."

"See you."

_Don't get your hopes up_.

It was practically a mantra by now. Don't fool yourself into thinking he actually likes you. Until one day, just before the end of the semester.

Nepeta woke up, went to Bio, acting, romantic literature (still the time period), and math. She spent her hours in the coffee shop and got her paycheck on this boring old Friday. She didn't have anywhere to go this particular night, because she was studying for finals in just a week. Gog, she was so _tired_.

Nepeta was half asleep with her face on the desk, when she heard the plinking sounds. She adjusted her book so she wasn't sleeping on it anymore and fell back into a fitful sleep.

But wait—was that Karkat's voice?

She sprang out of her chair to hear Lila say, "You must have the wrong window."

She shoved her roommate out of the way and called excitedly, "Nope! Right window! Hi!" She felt her face flush cherry-red.

"Hi," he said. "They wouldn't let me come in at the front door for some reason...so...uh…" He held something up and it was hard to see in the dim moonlight, but she thought it was a rose.

"I'll be down in just a sec!" she shouted. Oh gog, she was a mess! Her hair was mussed from sleeping in her textbook and she wasn't wearing any makeup so that pimple on her left cheek was painfully obvious and she was wearing _pajamas_ for Pete's sake…

She threw on something sort of nice, ran a brush through her hair, and prayed that he wouldn't notice that pimple. She grabbed her key and jogged downstairs to meet Karkat.

He was standing right where he'd been before, luckily. She ran up to him and breathlessly said, "Hi."

"Hey," he answered. "Okay. So...uh...I was wondering...I mean...if you wanted to go out sometime?" He stumbled on his words nervously and it was the most adorable sound she'd ever heard. He held out the rose and she blushed the same color as the fragrant flower.

She couldn't open her mouth. She was too shocked and too overjoyed and too sleepy to speak.

"It's okay if you don't want to go out...but—"

She cut him off. "Of course I do!" she exclaimed, wrapping her arms around him in a hug. "You have no idea how long I've wanted to hear that," she admitted. "No idea."

"I think I have some idea," he smiled.

"Since eighth grade," she said. "That's how long I've liked you."

"Since eleventh grade," he replied. "Since...since that day when you found me with the craft knife…Eighth grade? That long?"

"Since we were in school play together that last year," she answered. She let go of him and they stood about a foot or less apart, red-faced and a little sweaty. There was a long silence, in which Karkat fidgeted and Nepeta tried to think of something to say. A long, long silence, in which Karkat started to lean over and Nepeta stood on tiptoe out of apprehension and okay, maybe she just wanted to kiss him. It was still silent when all of a sudden, the last inches between them disappeared and her lips met his.

It was like flying, she decided. Ever since the first time she'd imagined kissing him, she'd thought it would be like melting. But this was like floating, flying, being free. His lips were soft and warm and everything she knew he was. It was just a gentle touch at first that became a deeper, more passionate kiss the longer it went on. His hands rested lightly on her hips and the touch barely registered in comparison with everything else. Her arms, thrown around his shoulders in a moment of excitement, now seemed loose and mobile. She rested one hand on the back of his neck, feeling the skin with tiny strands of baby hair that were just so soft.

She parted her lips ever so slightly, ready in case he didn't. But he followed suit and she felt his tongue slide against hers and it was simply blissful. She pulled him closer; she wanted to _feel_ him. Feel his warmth against her skin and his existence so near her own.

When they finally broke apart, it wasn't for awkwardness or lack of air. It was because someone on the third floor shouted down, "What the HELL are you two doing down there?" It took Nepeta several long minutes to realize that said someone was Marina. She pulled away and wrapped her fingers tightly around the red rose. Bright red and olive green; their favorite colors. "See you tomorrow," she said quietly, kissing him one more time before going back to her room.

"See you," he answered, and he disappeared into the inky night.

Maybe getting her hopes up wasn't such a bad thing after all.


	8. Into the World

**A/N: ****I am so sorry it takes me so long to update! I try for every week, but usually I end up updating every two weeks. Thank you for reading and for putting up with the long updates!**

_THERE'S A PARTY AT DEVON'S ON FRIDAY._

_:33 ooo is the first date going to be a party?_

_MAYBE_

_:33 ill meet you there at eight!_

_OK. COOL._

_:33 someones being quiet_

_DO YOU THINK MAYBE I'M JUST AS NERVOUS AS YOU?_

_PRETEND I NEVER SAID THAT._

_:33 its okay_

_:33 im nervous too karkitty!_

_THIS IS DUMB._

_I'VE KNOWN YOU SINCE WE WERE FIVE._

_THERE IS LITERALLY NO REASON TO BE NERVOUS AT ALL._

_:33 maybe its beclaws you gave me a pretty rose?_

__[The number at 5554136262 is offline]

_:33 karkitty?_

_SORRY, MY PHONE DISCONNECTS WHEN I CHECK MY HOMEWORK_

_SHIT, I'VE GOT AN ESSAY DUE TOMORROW._

_:33 really, or is that just karkitty's silly little excuse?_

_REALLY, IT'S THE ROMANTIC LIT ONE_

_:33 thats tomorrow?_

_YEP_

_:33 i better go too!_

_:33 see you tomorrow!_

_:33 3_

_3_

Nepeta laughed aloud and spun around in her cheap Ikea desk chair. Her first date with someone had never seemed so exciting! She was practically shaking with nerves. She was so light and teasing over text, but in person she wasn't sure she'd be able to think of a damn thing to say.

_You've known him for years and years; just say what you always do_.

She wasn't going to dress up too much, because this was not a formal thing, right? Right? Whatever. It was still Wednesday and there was still a romantic lit paper due tomorrow. Cringe.

After five long, painful hours of essay writing and printing (that tiny, shitty printer for her own room had been her best buy yet), she fell asleep with her face on the desk, her small nose smushed on the table.

Friday came far too fast and far too slow. She wasn't ready, but she was too ready, but there was too much to be done, but she was so bored because she had nothing to do but—

She took a deep, nervous breath and searched her (admittedly small) collection of semi-formal things. One fancy, olive-green dress she wore to Meulin's graduation and some other event her mother had taken her to over the summer, a friend of a friend's fiftieth anniversary or something. A nice skirt. Two fitted, V-neck shirts with lace. One short, semi-formal (damn that ridiculous word) dress. One pair of light green flats that were actually quite comfortable. She chose that dress, which was from freshman year event of some sort, and the flats, because she didn't bother buying heels she knew she'd ditch two seconds in. She brushed her hair one more time (which did absolutely nothing), carefully applied her makeup (which was a bit more effective), and set her shoulders back. Okay. She was ready.

Devon, a friend of a friend, was in a different dorm, but close enough that biking wasn't a problem (cars weren't allowed on the small campus). She checked her phone and—shit! She was late. Late for her first date, what a great start.

She ran in, a bit breathless, and hoped that she didn't have makeup pouring off her face. She checked in a mirror randomly placed on the wall and she did not look like a panda.

There was Karkat! She wove her way through her (varying levels of drunk) peers to Karkat, who was holding a Pepsi and standing very stiffly.

She put away her phone, still not used to plain old texting. Since Pesterchum had turned out to run on a virus that Sollux uncovered with a bit of careful hacking, she'd uninstalled the program and just stuck with texting. She did not have the computer skills to put up a firewall or something to protect her computer and those files, while containing nothing actually confidential, were precious to her.

She tapped her…boyfriend? Friend who was a boy? Date?…date on the shoulder. "Hi, Karkitty!"

He jumped and spun around, almost spilling his soda. "Hi," he said, trying to smile and ending up almost barring his teeth. "You look really pretty."

"Thanks," she said, blushing and looking at her shoes.

"Wait—did I say that out loud?"

"Yes, and I'm very glad you did."

"I…sorry."

"Why are you always sorry? It was a compliment. And I said thanks."

"I'm just sorta nervous," he admitted, staring at his Pepsi like it was his most recent random script idea.

"Me too," she grinned, and she was sure he could hear the nerves in her voice.

He closed his eyes for a microsecond. "This music is really fucking loud."

"Yeah. What song is this, anyways?"

"I can't hear shit."

"I think it's…that one song?"

"By that one dude?"

"Yeah, that one."

"I think so."

"Yeah, that's the chorus."

"Gog, who cares? All the songs by that one guy suck ass."

"Fair point."

Ten minutes of silence (between the two of them) passed.

"I've got some romcoms and movie-butter popcorn. Want to get out of this miserable conglomeration of morons?" Karkat asked, turning to Nepeta.

"Yeah."

He took her hand and led her out of the uncomfortably crowded room that smelled of alcohol and vomit and sweat.

Karkat opened the door without knocking. "My roommate's out of town this weekend. Leo's going to visit his family or some shit."

"Awesome," she said. She'd never been to his room before. The beds sat on opposite sides; both were messy as hell, though Leo's was a bit messier. Karkat looked around awkwardly. "Uh…I sorta don't know where my DVD player is. Or the popcorn. I think the microwave's over there…"

She shook her head fondly. "Look, I'll find the popcorn. I'm sure your DVD player is right where you always say you've left it—under the pile of dirty laundry with your laptop so no one steals out."

"Oh yeah…"

"Any time."

"If you weren't around I'd probably loose my left arm."

"As long as you've got your head on your shoulders."

He smiled and searched for the DVD player while she stuck the microwavable popcorn into the microwave and set the timer for three minutes.

"Which one? _Hitch, She's the Man, Miss Congeniality_…"

"Hitch, totally."

The microwave dinged and she poured the popcorn into a metal bowl. The two Pepsis that sat next to the pile of nonperishables might've been set there on purpose, or maybe not. Either way, she took those, too, and took the few steps to where he was struggling with the old, balky DVD player. She sat next to him on the bed (_please don't let anyone take that the wrong way_) and handed him a Pepsi. "Well, come on, press play!"

"I'm working on it, jeez!"

She giggled and nudged his neck with her nose. "Hitch then?"

"Mm-hmm."

"Sounds good to me, Karkitty."

"Uh…hey, Nepeta?"

"Yeah?"

"Uh…would it be cheesy if I said I don't want to spend another day without you?"

"Well…a bit. But…me too."

The popcorn bowl slowly emptied until the credits rolled and Nepeta was nearly (but not quite) asleep.

"Hey. I've gotta change the movie, you know."

"Oookaay."

He shifted just enough to switch DVDs, careful to put each disc back in its case. She moved the empty popcorn bowl and soda cans to the floor so she could sit right next to him. It was getting _cold_, and Nepeta was shivering badly. Gog, she hated the cold.

Karkat extracted a fluffy feathered comforter from somewhere and wrapped it around the both of them. He rested one arm around her shoulders and she nuzzled his neck again. He shrieked and pulled away. "You're cold!" he exclaimed.

"Cold hands, warm heart."

"What does that even mean?"

"Never mind."

The movie played until Nepeta felt her eyes droop and she shifted so her head was resting on his lap. He smiled and started idly twirling a lock of her hair. A sleepy smile spread across her face, when suddenly he dropped his hands and blurted, "Sorry, sorry, I…sorry."

"S'okay," she said. "I…I like it."

"Oh. Okay. Good. Uh…" He gently started playing with her hair again, but carefully and lightly, as if he was afraid she'd pull away. As if that would ever happen!

The second movie ended and it was late, midnight or one AM. "Karkitty?" Nepeta asked sleepily.

"Mm-hmm?" he answered, equally sleepy and much less able to fall asleep.

"Can I kiss you?" Maybe it was for the better that she was too tired for words; she'd never have that sort of courage fully awake.

"Sure."

She lifted her face (which had been resting on his shoulder) and closed the two-inch gap between the two of them.

She'd heard it said that when you kissed someone you loved, there would be sparks, but she never thought it could be taken literally.

It was like sparks crackling under her skin and jumping to contact him. His lips were impossibly soft and impossibly perfectly fit with hers. One of his hands rested on her waist while the other enmeshed itself in her messy hair, pressing in a way that should hurt but it didn't, it felt wonderful. She'd flung her arms around his shoulders and now she had firmly wrapped her arms around him, even though he was already close enough that she could feel his heartbeat, perfectly in sync with her own.

She was tempted to part her lips and see what would happen, but all her courage had been used in the first moment and now adrenalin was keeping her wide awake. And it was their first kiss, after all. That might be pushing it.

He was the first to pull away, but she didn't try to move to meet his lips again. Mostly because she was too tired, now that the adrenalin had run out, but a little because she was still really nervous around him.

"So…does that make us a couple?" he asked awkwardly.

"I guess so?" she answered. "Uh…do you want to be a couple?"

"Yeah," he answered slowly. "Do you?"

"Of course."

"Okay. So I guess…d'you wanna go to the movies tomorrow?" He said it all very fast, in one breath.

"Yeah. I'd love to," she answered, blushing bright scarlet. Her phone buzzed. "Who's that?" she snapped under her breath.

"Sorry, what?" he asked.

"Just my phone. Turned itself off," she answered, shoving the electronic back in her pocket. "I think I should probably heading home, before it gets dark."

"I'll walk you."

"No, it's alright."

"Fine, but call me when you get home, okay?"

"What do you think is going to happen? I'll be fine."

"I know, but still. You never know."

"Alright, fine. I'll call."

"See you tomorrow."

"See you, Karkitty." She accepted one last light kiss and left for home.

Lila was fast asleep and snoring loudly when Nepeta quietly unlocked the door and dangled the key from the hook on the wall. She pulled out her cell phone. Karkat was fifth on speed dial, after voicemail, her mother, her sister, and Equius.

"I'm home, safe and sound."

"Really? Great."

"Are you even trying to sleep, Karkitty?"

"...Yes…"

"When I hang up, you better turn off your computer and read a book until you fall asleep."

"What, read myself to sleep?"

"Yeah. I did it all the time in high school."

"Alright, fine. Then...see you tomorrow?"

"See you tomorrow, Karkitty."

When tomorrow came, it was much less anxiety-inducing than yesterday. She'd made sure to schedule a grand total of zero classes on Saturdays because she could just sleep when she was tired and eat when she was hungry and not worry about classes or normal human rhythms. Normal was overrated anyways.

She curled up on her bed for a catnap at around five. A nice, solid hour of sleep would do her tired mind some good. Especially when the nerves, though diminished, were by no means entirely gone. If normal nervousness was like butterflies, this was like some sort of insect battle to the death. Or maybe the butterfly version of World War II. Or maybe Karkat's habit of created overly elaborate metaphors was rubbing off on her.

This time, she chose her skirt, a present from her sister a couple years ago for some reason. Skirt, nice shirt, makeup, check. Now it was time to tackle her hair.

She was determined to brush her hair out properly this time. So she found the hairbrush, long since buried under more useful and more often used items, faced the mirror, and started on her bangs.

_That wasn't so hard, now what it?_ she thought. But the next section of hair proved much harder. Because thick, short, hair that hadn't been washed in about a day or maybe two could never be easy to brush, could it? Her hair wasn't crazy-curly, like Feferi's, but it was wavy and hard to brush or style.

She finally got half her hair done and couldn't help but laugh when she looked in the mirror. Every single infomercial with the girl who was using whatever new hair product and half her hair was smooth and pretty and the other side was frizzy was now made so much sense. The right side of her head had been combed and brushed so that it was, if not at all pretty, at least smooth and in order. It was much better than nothing.

She was so close to being done with the other half of her hair; so close! But her phone buzzed on the counter and it was a text from Karkat: _YOU HERE YET?_

Shit.

_Be there in a sec_, she replied. How far away was the theater? Five minutes? If she biked, she could make it.

She jumped on her bike and sped to the theater, her hair flung behind her like a curtain. She screeched to a stop right outside the movie theater and ran in, breathless and shaking. She took a few deep breaths to calm her pounding heart and searched the lobby for Karkat.

"What took you?" he asked, genuinely curious.

"Honestly? I was trying to brush my hair."

"Well, it worked."

"You're kidding me."

"No, really! It...you look really nice."

She blushed. "You too. What movie?"

"Uh...I dunno. You choose."

"Well I don't know, either!" she teased. He rolled his eyes fondly.

"Are we really gonna do this?" he asked. "I don't want to be a stereotype couple who's just like, 'You hang up' 'No, you hang up'."

"And why not?"

"Because...because of reasons!"

"Someone's been spending too much time on a certain website."

"I spend a perfectly reasonable amount of time on Tumblr! Fuck you!"

"Why Karkitty, it's only the second date."

He looked intensely uncomfortable. "I'm only teasing," she added. She did enjoy sometimes saying things to make him squirm. "How about...whatever movie's in theater seven?"

"Why seven?"

"It's my lucky number."

"Mine too."

"I'll buy candy if you buy tickets."

"I can pay for it."

"Come on, don't worry about it. What sort of candy do you want?"

"Uh...you know those sour rainbow things?"

"Yeah."

"I really like those. But seriously, I can pay for this myself."

"Karkat." She placed her hands on her hips and looked at him as if over a pair of thin-rimmed glasses. "I've got this. It's called sharing."

"Okay, fine. Theater seven."

"Theater seven."

"Meet you back here in five?"

"Sounds good, Karkitty." She gave him a light peck on the lips and practically skipped to the candy counter. She pinched herself; this couldn't possibly be real. She was at the movies, with Karkat, and only Karkat, who liked her romantically, and who she had the courage to talk to, and make those sorts of jokes that Kate made, too. This could not possibly be real.

But it was, it was very real. It was as solid as the floor of theater seven and the seats in the theater and the warm, soft weight of his arm around her shoulders. It was as real as his hand gripping hers and her other hand holding onto the hem of her skirt with a white-knuckled grip because this was just too much.

"Karkitty?"

"Yeah?"

"I just wanted to tell you...I kinda can't believe this is happening. Because I'm with...with you." Her face heated up about twenty degrees and she was sure she was that tomato-red color that was so embarrassing.

"Wait, why?"

"Because...I never thought you'd like me," she blurted in one breath. "At all. I mean, we were friends and all, but so were me and Equius, and he's like my brother. I just always assumed you wouldn't ever love me the way I love you and now...it's just unreal."

"You know, I thought the same thing."

"But didn't you know?"

"What, that you liked me? Well...I sorta did. But when you were going out with Alex and I was with Terezi, I sorta assumed you'd moved on. And I did, too."

"What a thing."

"Hm?"

"Something my mom used to say when something was just coincidental and crazy and...like this."

"But...but good?"

"Yeah. Very good."

"Nepeta?"

"Yeah?"

"I love you."

"I love you too, Karkitty."

Finals were the worst yet that year. If she was being honest, Karkat got her through the insane tests and essays and stress and lack of sleep, because he'd learned some tricks along the way for when you were too tired to function, because as a rule, he was always too tired to function.

The first time, she called him at one in the morning, practically hysterical from lack of sleep and stress and the fact that she had a ten-page paper on _The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks_ due the next day.

"Oh my gog, Karkitty, I'm never gonna get this done, it's too much work and if I fail this class I might not have enough credits to graduate and-"

"Nepeta. Calm down."

"But it's due tomorrow and all I've got down is the intro-"

"Nepeta. Seriously, listen for a fucking second. Okay. Take three deep breaths."

She took three of those deep, shaky breaths that happened when she was crying. "Okay."

"Now say this three times: I am more than my grades."

"I'm more than my grades. I'm more-more than my grades. I'm...I'm more than my grades."

"I am loved."

"I am loved."

"I am fine just the way I am."

"I am fine just the way I am."

"Great. Feeling better?"

"Kind of?"

"Good."

"How did you learn that?"

"Uh...remember the therapist in eleventh grade?"

"Yeah, of course."

"When I told him about the insomnia, he taught me this whole thing to help you destress and fall asleep. I guess I never really forgot it."

"Sounds like something my old yoga teacher would say."

"Yeah, he said it was a yoga meditation. It…it does usually help a lot."

"Thank you so much."

"Any time, Nepeta."

"Now you get some sleep."

"But I have an essay too, you know."

"Which one?"

A pause; he must be checking his obsessively organized lists. "I've gotta finish my script for film studies and a paper for botany."

"Good luck."

"Good luck to you too."

"Goodnight, Karkitty."

"Goodnight, Nepeta."

"I love you."

"I love you too."

That summer, she took the train home with Karkat and Kate and Kate's new boyfriend (her last girlfriend had dumped her for some guy named Fred).

"Mom, there's someone I'd like you to meet," Nepeta said after the obligatory hugs and how's-it-been's.

"Who, darling? A boyfriend, right?"

"Mom, meet my boyfriend, Karkat. Karkat, my mom."

"Oh my goodness! You!" Nepeta's mother exclaimed, hugging him. She winced. She'd forgotten to warn him about that. "I remember you! I hope you're taking good care of my daughter."

"Yeah," Karkat nodded, looking very nervous.

"As if you've never met my mom!" Nepeta whispered as his dad walked up.

"As if you've never met my dad."

"Fair point."

Karkat's dad was a good few inches taller than Karkat and very imposing to her. "Hi, Dad," Karkat said. "This is Nepeta. She's my girlfriend."

"Nice to see you again," Karkat's dad said, shaking her hand.

"Nice to see you, too," Nepeta smiled shakily. She hugged Karkat once and said, "Get some sleep, okay?"

"I will, jeez."

"See you."

"See you."

Nepeta climbed into the car with her mother and everything she'd brought to school and grinned widely. "So, tell me what's going on!" her mother smiled. "Meulin's visiting this weekend with her boyfriend."

"Mom," Nepeta began, shaking her head. "I've got loads to tell you."

Meulin's boyfriend turned out to be Kurloz, after...what was it? Four years of separation? Five? She'd lost count.

She missed family dinners. She missed eating dinner every night with her mother and her sister and something her mother cooked in thirty minutes, usually fish or chicken or spaghetti. Sometimes steak. Sometimes Lean Cuisine.

But she refused to ever let her mother cook alone again. So before Meulin came over (she was taking the train in from California), she joined her mother in the kitchen with one pot of boiling water, ten potatoes, three pounds of chicken, and a jar of marinade.

"How did finals go?"

"Fine, Mom. What about you?"

"Oh, nothing much. I've been taking classes at the park center."

"What sort of classes?"

"Writing, mostly. Swimming, too."

"Oh, how's that going?"

"Very well, love. But how has the weather been? Too cold?"

"Mom, I grew up here. I'm fine in a blizzard or two. How've the cats been? Mimi must be getting old."

"Mimi's had to go to the vet a good deal. Zero's just fine, of course, though I hardly ever know where he is anymore! Silly outdoors cat."

"Mimi's been going to the vet?"

"Don't worry, love. Just routine checkups."

Nepeta nodded like she believed it. She was twenty-one; why wasn't her mother letting on that Mimi was probably sick?

"Hey, Mom, could we maybe invite Karkat over to dinner, too?" she questioned carefully, wearing her old "please mom" smile.

"Of course, dear! Any time that works for him and his family."

"Thanks, Mom."

The cooking didn't take long; it was the chicken marinade recipe her mother got from a friend in New York and the mashed potatoes recipe in Joy of Cooking. Also microwave-steamed green beans grown in the pot garden on the back deck that had been there since Nepeta was five.

It was a perfectly fine family dinner, plus one. Kurloz didn't talk at all (Nepeta made a mental note to ask her sister again about that whole deal from...five years ago? Was that right?), but he did sign some and Meulin alternated between signing and sort-of shouting. She'd gotten better about the shouting recently, luckily for Nepeta's ears.

Senior year was pretty decent to start with, which is to say that renting a house with Kate and Lila and Emily and Amber from the cosplay club really wasn't too bad. The five-way cost split really helped out when it came to utilities and food money, and conventions, of course. Five members of the cosplay club did have a tendency to go to more conventions than they could afford.

"Please! You don't have to cosplay, I swear. Please just come."

"But I won't get anything!"

"Just on Sunday. Please? Sunday's the quietest."

Karkat made some sort of very flailing gesture before finally saying, "Fine. I'll go on Sunday. But I'm not dressing up."

"Thank you!" She kissed him and grinned. "Gotta get to vet science, see you tomorrow!"

"Bye," he said, and half a smile that was become ever more common lit up his face.

He was gorgeous when he smiled.

Sunday was the day she chose to wear her least outstanding cosplay. No wigs, no impossible makeup, no bright purple contacts, no elaborately sewn costumes. Just something that could be worn and get only a few weird looks, because it was pretty obvious that Karkat wasn't used to convention life.

"Did you sleep last night?"

"Damn, is that all you ever ask me?"

"I will until the answer is yes."

"It is literally a chemical problem with my brain. There is shit I can do about it."

"That won't stop me caring about you."

He blushed. "Touching," he said, but the sarcasm was a transparent sham.

There was a brief silence, the sort that contains uncountable amounts of understanding between two people who know each other like the same soul.

"Well, come on!" Nepeta grinned, grabbing his hand. She didn't know where she'd found this courage or whatever it was, but she was no longer afraid to take his hand or kiss him randomly in the middle of a date or crack a joke to make him squirm. Maybe it was just knowing that he loved her for who she was, who she'd always been, not who she could be.

Also, he was just as awkward as her and that was strangely confidence-boosting.

Graduation was rushing up like a speeding train. The Sunday at convention with Karkat had been a nice break, but now was finals and studying all over again.

Damn cummulative finals.

The tests and essays were getting ridiculous; Nepeta hardly slept and started living on energy drinks and whatever food Emily had stocked up on before the week started (because Emily was the only one in the whole house who had anything resembling foresight). A paper a night or so brought her to a grand total of five essays and six cummulative finals.

But once it was all over, it was time for graduation.

She took a deep breath. It had taken forever and a day, but Kate had finally done her hair in some crazy updo nice enough to wear out. Her drop earrings caught the light and matched her grandmother's old emerald necklace around her neck. The dress, her only formal dress, was an olive-green mermaid dress with a flared bottom and one strap. For once in her life, she was wearing heels, though they were kitten heels. Her makeup was done for dramatic effect, not natural looks. She looked at herself in the mirror and spun around. She normally wasn't too happy with her appearance, but this time, maybe she did look nice.

Emily emerged in a tight-cut aquamarine dress that Kate had talked her into wearing because it looked gorgeous on her, even if she didn't believe it. Her long, loosely curly hair was swept back and brushed smooth. She was also wearing small stud earrings and heels, because Emily was as small as Nepeta when it came to height. Amber was in the living room in burgundy and a brunette bun and Lila was doing her makeup in a black and white dress with a diamond pendant on a change. Kate herself was wearing bright pink and her blonde hair in a braided hairdo of some sort and very dramatically done makeup and ruby earrings from what Kate said was a long time ago. "Ready?" Kate asked, wearing a glowing smile.

"Ready," Nepeta answered. She smiled around at her housemates. "Let's do this."

They all prepared to take Emily's mother's car to the place where they'd graduate from school for what could be the last time. Nepeta was going to go for her master's in veterinary science, and hopefully her doctorate, but this...this was really leaving school. For the last time.

They were all lined up alphabetically, A to Z. Nepeta was (as usual) somewhere in the middle, as an L. Karkat was all the way near the end. She turned back to wave at him. "Good job," she mouthed. He nodded and gave her a thumbs up. Smiling, she turned to face front and waited for her turn.

Why was she so nervous? She'd already graduated; why worry? This was just a ceremony, a piece of paper, and a party. Okay, she was a bit nervous for the party, because of her interesting Prom, but the real source of her nerves was almost completely unknown.

Her mother waved from the audience, and Meulin signed something Nepeta didn't quite catch. Nepeta offered them a shaky smile in response.

There are several obligatory speeches before the names are called, and it seems like an eternity of people talking and talking and talking. She should've brought a book.

"Henrietta Aaronson."

The second-tallest girl Nepeta had ever met, after Aradia, marched up to the stage.

Names were called one by one by one, until it was finally the L's. "Nepeta Leijon." She stood and, making double-sure to not teeter in the high heels she was wearing for the second time in her life, walked carefully across the stage. Her smile, a complete facade, probably made her look far more confident than she actually was as she walked.

She collapsed into her seat as more names ticked by, only a few making a real impression.

"Karkat Vantas." And a few later: "Kate Zygerman."

The ceremony concluded with a few more speeches and one ironic quote from someone, sometime.

Finally, finally, they could stand and walk out and take off their shoes, because shoes in Nepeta's opinion were overrated. What was the _point_?

"Congratulation, love!" Nepeta's mom exclaimed, hugging her daughter tightly. "You've done so well!"

"Thanks, Mom," Nepeta grinned.

"Good job, little sister!" Meulin shouted. "I'm so proud of you."

"Aw, thanks, big sister," Nepeta half teased, signing the words for effect.

Meulin smiled widely. "You're welcome. Do you and your friends have some sort of party set up?"

"You bet."

"And is your old sister invited?"

"No."

Meulin grinned again. "Well, congrats, Little Miss Kitty-cat. I've gotta catch the first train back tomorrow."

"Why not the plane?"

Meulin shrugged. "Train's cheaper."

"And I must, too," Nepeta's mother agreed. "Have fun, love. See you soon!"

"See you, Mom."

She did have a party, hosted by her friend Jasmine at Jasmine's dorm room. All of her cosplay club friends were going, not to mention friends from classes and (of course) Karkat. Karkat had even gotten her flowers. She plucked one, a red rose, out of the mix, and tucked it behind her ear, securing the lovely flower with a bobby pin. "Thank you, Karkitty."

"You're welcome," he muttered, blushing.

"I got you something, too."

"Oh. Uh...thanks."

"You haven't even seen it yet," she teased.

He waved one hand and said, "I'm sure it'll be great."

"I got you a coffee mug," she smiled. "You drink too much of the stuff, might as well make your own coffee."

"This looks like a tea mug."

"Tea mugs are prettier than coffee ones."

"Good enough for me," he smiled, kissing her.

They were pretty close to Jasmine's room; the music was already audible. His warm, calloused hand, sweaty from the million-degree graduation hall, gripped hers lovingly. They'd stopped at her house and his dorm room for just long enough to drop off the variety of familial gifts, because neither wanted to go to this party alone.

"You know…you look really nice," Karkat said. "The dress and everything."

"Thanks," Nepeta blushed. She would never stop blushing when he called her pretty, she knew it. "You too. The whole pointy-shoulders tuxedo thing works on you."

"I'm sorry, what?"

"Men in tuxedos always have weirdly pointy shoulders, and it looks…looks nice on you."

She wasn't sure in the dim light, but she thought he blushed, too.

The party was a lot of top-forty songs no one was quite sure they liked, a lot of finally legal alcohol, and a lot of people so deliriously happy to have passed that the whole room was full of vibrant happiness. And it was infectious; Nepeta danced and laughed and got just a little drunk with everyone else, never letting go of Karkat's hand.

It was about three in the morning when Karkat tapped her on the shoulder and said, "Hey. D'you want to go hang out on the roof?"

"That isn't some sort of innuendo, is it?"

"No, I literally mean the roof. My room was here last year and the view from the roof is really, really cool."

"Sure, I'll come."

Up on the roof, the view was, in fact, spectacular. There was complete silence between the two of them for a long, long time.

"Man, look at how long it's been!" she exclaimed suddenly, gazing up at the bright stars, easily visible from the dorm rooftop.

"What d'you mean?" he asked.

"Just…think about it! When we first met, how old were we? Five? And look at us now! We're seniors in college, dating! And…it's just all sort of crazy."

"Crazy good or crazy bad?"

"Crazy wonderful."

"I love you."

"I love you too."

**A/N: PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE COMMENT**

**Really it means so much to me I can't even express it and I will love you forever.**


	9. Insert Witty Title Here

**A/N: I have made it my goal to reply to all comments/reviews and that's why I've done that. Also, thanks to everyone who's read this because I really, really appreciate it and I seriously love you for it. **

**I based Meulin and Nepeta's interactions in this chapter pretty heavily on how I act when my little sister has a crush. **

Chapter 9: Insert Witty Title Here

"Mom, please…just don't talk about anything that happened before I turned eighteen."

"Why not, love?"

"Because it's embarrassing and they already know!"

Your mother gives you a look. "Come on, darling. If he loves you half as much as you love him, he won't care."

"He was _there_. What about his dad and his brother? They might be my family someday!"

"And if they are, it won't matter that you tripped when graduating middle school."

"Just _please_ don't embarrass me, Mom."

"I'll do my best, love."

"_Thank_ you."

"You're welcome," her mother teased, smiling. "You know I wouldn't do that to you, Nepeta."

Nepeta rolled her eyes. "Mom, I am living on my own and I've got a job. I just want a nice dinner with my boyfriend and his family."

"You know I'm teasing you."

"I do know, Mom. Can you help me out with this?" _This_ being an onion ring and steak dish her mother brought out on occasion.

"You've got to turn on the stove, love."

"Right. That."

"Then heat up the oil, dip the onions in the flour and salt mixture and the milk twice each, then drop them in the oil, and for Pete's sake, don't spill boiling oil on yourself."

"Mom. Twenty-three. College graduate. Working on a master's degree. I can cook onion rings."

"Just don't set the food on fire, darling."

"That was _once_."

Her mother smiled and turned back to the marinade. It really was just once, and the fire hadn't spread to anything besides one oven mitt. Even the smoke alarms didn't go off for longer than just a few minutes. Anyways, she'd been twelve.

The doorbell rang and Nepeta nearly jumped out of her skin. "I got it, I got it!" she shouted, before her mother could answer the door. She was an adult by now, dammit; she did not need her mother to answer the door.

Of course it was just Meulin, come home to the Chicago 'burbs for two days without her boyfriend. "He's visiting with some cousins back in California," Meulin explained, at a normal volume and with that same purr in her voice. But then her tone shifted to be teasing and annoying. "So we're eating dinner with your boyfriend's family tonight?"

"Shut up," Nepeta muttered, blushing.

"Nepeta, you know I'm messing with you."

"Okay. Do not mention anything that occurred before I turned eighteen. Or anything I did that's just generally embarrassing."

"Like that time last summer when you were going to go swimming but the pool was closed so Terezi talked you into climbing the fence and you nearly got arrested?"

"MEULIN! You're worse than Mom!"

"Hey, you were a good enough little sister around Kurloz. I intend to return the favor."

"Thanks, Meu."

"Any time, Little Miss Kitty-cat."

"Don't call me that when they're here."

"I won't."

"Come on, help me cook onion rings," Nepeta prompted. She dropped her voice to a whisper and added, "I still can't cook. Don't tell Mom."

Meulin smiled. Their mother always said Meulin was a lot more like their father, and Nepeta was more like their mother, except for cooking skills. Meulin got all the cooking skills.

"Look, just dip the onions in the milk, the flour, then the milk, then the flour, and then give it to me and I'll do the boiling oil bit," Meulin instructed as they walked to the kitchen.

"You are a lifesaver, big sister," Nepeta said gratefully.

Meulin smiled. "So what've you been up to while I've been in the golden state?"

"Not much. Got a job at Hackney's and a second one at the shelter downtown. I've got an apartment near there, too. And before you can ask—yes, I live right near him."

"Hasn't he proposed yet?" Meulin teased.

"I hate you!"

"No you don't," Meulin grinned, dropping the first few batter-coated onions in the heated oil. She was definitely getting better about volume.

"What're you doing with your life?" Nepeta asked her sister, taking another onion off the counter.

"Oh, the usual. Another newspaper took my advice column and Kurloz got a promotion."

"What does he even do for work?"

"I told you, he works for that computer place."

"Right. How'd he even do that? He doesn't talk, right?"

"He hasn't said anything since junior year."

Nepeta didn't comment on that.

The doorbell rang a second time and Nepeta panicked, dropping one of the onions on the floor and not even bothering to rinse her doughy fingers before running to the door. She fumbled with the stubborn lock her mother never bothered to get fixed and swung open the door to see Karkat looking awkward, Kankri looking more awkward, and Mr. Vantas looking a little bit lost.

"Did you find out house okay?" she blurted. Dammit, of course they did! She was talking to her childhood friend!

"Yeah," Karkat nodded.

"Come in," she said. "Uh…just give me a second. Sit anywhere." She slipped into the kitchen and shot her sister a look and said quietly, "Mom, they're here!"

"That's nice, dear."

"Mom. My boyfriend and his family are here, can I please get a response?"

Her mother finished setting the oven timer and said, "I'm coming, love. Don't be so impatient."

Nepeta sighed and grabbed Meulin's wrist. "Come on," she said. "The onions are done. Mom can get the oil, or I will later."

"D'aw, feeling nervous?"

"Shut the fuck up."

Meulin smiled. "I'm your big sister. I will _never_ stop messing with you."

"Screw you."

Meulin rolled her eyes fondly and followed Nepeta into the living room.

"Hello!" Meulin grinned. Nepeta barely pulled off the sisterly you-fucking-moron glare without anyone noticing and said, "This is my sister, Meulin. Meulin, Kankri, Karkat, and Mr. Vantas."

"Nice to meet you," Meulin said, only slightly too loud, as she shook their hands. "Nepeta's told me so much about you!"

You-fucking-moron glare again. _Please nobody notice_.

"Really?" Karkat says. "Like what?"

Nepeta decided that it would be prudent to jump into the conversation at this point, before her older sister screwed things up too badly. Face blazing bright scarlet, she said, "Just that you're a very nice person and that—oh yeah, Meulin, weren't you supposed to go dump the oil from the onion rings?"

"I thought you said you would."

"Yeah, well, reasons," Nepeta retaliated.

"Reasons like the _car_ dad could never afford?"

"Exactly."

Meulin left the room, shooting an exaggerated wink at Nepeta.

"Sorry," Nepeta said, sitting in the chair just to the right of the couch Karkat and his brother were currently occupying. Thank heaven for sisters and mutual understand of obscure codes.

"S'okay," Karkat said awkwardly.

"So," Nepeta smiled. She was sure everyone could see through the façade, but hey, what the hell. "How's it been going with the new script idea?" Her face was absolutely burning by now and she was suddenly much more grateful than ever for makeup and especially concealer.

"Good," Karkat nodded frantically. Just then, there was a hissing sound from the kitchen and Nepeta winced. Meulin actually was taking care of the boiling oil.

"What was that?" Mr. Vantas asked in shock.

"Uh…we were making onion rings and we use boiling oil for that so when you dump it out it in the sink it makes all this steam and—" A loud and intrusive _beeeep_ interrupted her. "The smoke alarms go off," she sighed. "I'll be right back. I've gotta take out the batteries."

The three Vantases nodded and Nepeta scurried to the kitchen. She hauled one of the chairs to the smoke alarm and reached up to pry the thing off the ceiling.

She left the batteries and the alarm on the counter and dug her nails into her sister's arm.

"I didn't mean for you to actually take care of the oil and set off the damn smoke alarm!"

"Nepeta," Meulin says, and she sounds serious for once. She switches to sign language and you know she's serious.

"Nep, I know you're nervous, but he loves you."

"So?"

"I doubt there's anything you or I or even out mother could do that would make him stop loving you."

"But his dad…!"

"His dad and his brother have known you since you were five, and remember, his brother is my friend. Anyways, if doesn't love you because of some dumb thing you did four years ago, he doesn't deserve you."

Nepeta smiled. "Thanks, Meu," she signed.

"Come on then. Ready to face the world?"

"You make it sound so dramatic."

Meulin grinned. "_Allons-y!_"

The two sisters sat on chairs in the living room with two brothers (one of whom looked like he was willing to be anywhere else but here and the other whom was avoiding his father's stare) and Mr. Vantas (who looked distinctly awkward and vaguely confused).

But conversation flowed smoothly. Maybe it was the fact that Meulin knew Kankri quite well, or that Nepeta and Meulin were sociable people, or that Kankri was very good at talking, or that, as it turned out, Nepeta's mom had known Mr. Vantas in high school (because _no one_ had ever bothered to mention this to _any_ of the four…whatever you call people trying to get jobs in their field), but it was not nearly as uncomfortable as Nepeta had been fearing for about a week and a half.

That is to say, everyone brought up equal numbers of embarrassing stories.

Meulin did not tell the story of climbing the fence at the pool (because there was an agreement between them to not mention anything illegal) and Nepeta did not bring up the time Meulin got drunk and prank-called a celebrity whose name Nepeta did not remember (because telling that crossed the sisterly line between funny and evil). And maybe she was imagining it, but she was sure she saw Karkat and Kankri flinch a couple times each.

"Let me help clean up," Karkat said when Nepeta stood up the clear the table.

"No, it's alright," she insisted, but he took half the plates anyways.

"Thanks," she said gratefully once she'd joined him in the kitchen. "Seriously. Thank you so much."

"What for?"

"Cleaning up. Being amazing."

He looked a bit puzzled, but pleasantly so. "You're welcome?"

"Sorry. It's just that I was really worried my mom wouldn't like you or your dad wouldn't like me."

"There is no universe in which my dad wouldn't like you. Even if he did, it wouldn't matter."

She smiled sweetly. "Pass the plates? I'll put everything into the dishwasher."

"You sure?"

"It's my house. I'll do the dishes."

When the Vantas family left, it was late, too late for Nepeta to consider taking the el train home. She'd chosen her neighborhood for both safety and a short commute, but it was past ten. By the time she got home, it would be past eleven and it just wasn't a good idea to be out that late as a girl.

"Mom, could I maybe please stay here tonight?"

"You and Meulin? I don't know if I can handle the two of you!"

"So I can stay?"

"Of course, love."

"Thank you!" Nepeta wrapped her arms around her mother tightly. When she let go, she noticed for the first time that she was taller than her mother. Not by much, an inch or two at most, but enough that she was no longer a little kid. And Meulin was even taller, about two inches taller than Nepeta. "I really mean it, Mom. Thanks a ton."

"Any time. You're always welcome here, Nepeta."

She slept better than she had in a long time that night.

But the quiet peace was disturbed the next morning when Nepeta's sister stormed into her room with her cell phone. Meulin looked furious; her hands on her hips and the firey look in her eyes was almost identical as their mother's angry face.

"Nepeta! What the hell?"

"Gog, Meulin, what is it?"

"Pardon me, but I think I'm careful with my phone for a damn reason!"

"What d'you mean? I haven't touched your phone!"

"Then who called my _boss_ yesterday at 3 AM?"

"Not me! I was fucking _asleep_, Meulin!"

"Who else could've?"

"Mom?"

"Yeah fucking right!"

"Well, I didn't! You probably butt-dialed the number last night!"

"Nice try, stupid! I sleep with the phone on the other side of the room."

"I don't know, sleepwalking or some shit? Stop blaming me!"

"You've sleepwalked before; I haven't. Who's more likely now?"

Nepeta considered. "I did wake up around three fifteen…"

"You did do it!"

"Not on purpose!"

"What did you say?" When Nepeta didn't answer, Meulin shouted louder. "WHAT DID YOU SAY?"

"I DON'T REMEMBER!"

"I'll tell Mom you stole my phone and called my boss!"

"I will tell Mom about that time you failed calculus and had to go to summer school and you gave her a friend's Photoshopped report card so you wouldn't get grounded. Don't think for a second I wouldn't."

"You bring that up, I'll bring up your Prom night."

Nepeta felt like passing out. "How did you know about that?" she asked faintly.

"I guessed."

"You absolute bitch!"

"It was obvious. A lot of people, judging by the letters people send me for the advice column, on Prom night, lose—"

"Don't you dare say it."

"Okay, fine. Anyways. You had a boyfriend and a hotel room. I guessed."

"If you bring that up, I'll…I'll tell Mom what happened the night you went deaf!"

"You don't know what happened!" Meulin sounded desperate.

"You'd like to think that!"

"I'm not even kidding, I would kill you."

"Then don't talk about my Prom!"

"Fine!" Meulin yelled, still red-faced. She pulled out her phone and grabbed Nepeta's arm, digging her fingernails into Nepeta's skin. "You don't get to leave until this is sorted out."

Meulin held the phone to her ear and Nepeta rolled her eyes, fiddling with her own phone. "Hello, Mr. Greene? Sorry to bother you. I stayed over with my sister last night and it seems she called you at around 3 AM where I am…1 AM where you are. Oh, really? She must've been sleepwalking, she does that sometimes…I agree, sir, it's very weird…I'm two weeks ahead of print, yes…thank you, sir." She snapped the phone shut. "Apparently you told him that you lost your cat named Fluffy and it must be around here somewhere."

Nepeta winced.

"Yeah, saw that one coming," Meulin laughed. "Okay, sorry for flipping out like that. My boss is just sorta scary sometimes."

"That's alright," Nepeta said. "Just don't do it again."

"I'll try not to."

But there was more to her response than that. They likely would never again live together, ever. They'd gone their separate ways and they'd never again be the kid sisters they once were.

"See you around, then?" Nepeta forced out around a sudden lump in her throat.

"I'll call if you do," Meulin teased, offering a shaky smile. Nepeta hugged her sister tightly, as if Meulin was somehow going to evaporate unless Nepeta held onto her sister with all her strength.

Meulin hugged Nepeta the same way.

"See you!" Meulin called as she left through the front door to walk to the Amtrak station a few blocks away. "Love you, Mom! Love you, Nepeta!"

"Love you too, dear!" Nepeta's mom shouted.

"Love you, too," Nepeta said as Meulin left, waving a sad goodbye.

Her mother gave her a ride to the el station and kissed her once on her forehead. "I love you, Nepeta."

"Love you too, Mom," Nepeta choked as she waved a second goodbye and climbed onto the el to go back home.

Back at her apartment, she'd no sooner set down her purse than her laptop dinged with a Skype notification. Nepeta ran her fingers through her hair and answered the call, from someone called apocalypseArisen, a name that looked almost familiar, but not quite.

"Nepeta?"

"Aradia! Oh my gog, it's so great to hear from you! So how's it been?"

"Oh, the usual. Been at the University of Chicago—"

"Wait. Chicago?"

"Yeah."

"I live in Chicago too!"

"Really? Almost all of us do!"

"No way!"

"Yes way! Sollux just opened a computer repair shop near the university and Vriska's at university too!"

"Wait—are you and Sollux a thing?"

A giggle. "Maybe."

"That's so cute!"

"Shut up! What about you?"

Nepeta blushed.

"Who is it? Is it Alex?"

The blush disappeared. "No, he dumped me halfway through freshman year."

Aradia winced. "That's rough. Who's the new guy?"

"Karkat," Nepeta blurted.

Aradia didn't answer for a long moment. "_The_ Karkat? _Our_ Karkat?"

"Yes, our Karkat."

"That's so sweet! Did he ask you or did you ask him?"

"He asked me with a rose and everything!"

"Okay, you two are the cutest couple in the history of forever!"

"Hello, you and Sollux? You two were best friends since, what, preschool?"

"Yeah," Aradia acknowledged, flushing pink. "I mean…he's super sweet, even if he doesn't show it."

"D'aw, so adorable!"

"What're you two doing for a living anyways?"

"I work at Hackney's nights and an animal shelter and Karkat's writing a show called Falling Stars. Sort of a sci-fi thing where embodiments of stars have to gather themselves for the galactic council, but they've been cast out from their stars and scattered all over the galaxy and two of them on Earth plus one on Mars and two Earth girls have to go get everyone together. It's seriously complex. What about you and Sollux?"

"Well, I'm still stuck at the Michael's. The craft store, not the restaurant, sorry. Sollux opened his own electronics and computer shop and it's been hard, but I'm sure he'll pull through and do well!"

"That is the sweetest thing I've ever heard!"

"Seriously, shut up," Aradia laughed. "We should plan a get-together for everyone!"

"Totally! Do we know who's around here?"

"Vriska, John, Sollux, Karkat, you, me…hm. I think Rose and Kanaya, because they're still an item, and Dave, and maybe Tavros? I think Jade's getting ready to move to Europe…"

"Europe?"

"Yeah, you know the huge lab over there for physics? Sir or whatever?"

"CERN?" Nepeta asked, remembering the all the times Emily had gone on about the prestigious laboratory overseas.

"Yeah, that one. She applied for a job there and she actually got it! She must be a hell of a genius."

"Wow!"

"I think it starts in a year, though, so we've got time. She's staying with John, I'd bet."

"Probably. So that leaves Terezi, Gamzee, Eridan, and Feferi."

"What about Equius?"

"Oh, he's just down the street from me."

"Why didn't you just say so?"

"I guess I sorta forgot. He's just always there for me, you know how it is."

"Yeah."

"Well, last I heard, Eridan is in Portland."

"No kidding! Land of Hipsters and Fog?"

"Yeah, he and Feferi."

"Are they a thing?" Aradia asked curiously.

"I don't know! It's weird—I always know. But with them…it's weird."

"Well, last _I_ heard, Gamzee's in Chicago. But I think Terezi's at Harvard Law."

"Like she always said she'd be."

"Of course," Aradia smiled. "Anyways, that puts most everyone around here!"

"Everyone could come to my apartment! I'd love to host."

"Really? Ohmygog that would be so much fun!"

"I know! I'd love to catch up with everyone."

"So what day works for you?"

"How about…" Nepeta scanned her calendar, a habit she must've picked up from her mother. "November twenty-third?"

"Sounds good to me! I'll tell everyone. What's your apartment?"

"33 Fourth street south, apartment 3A."

"Awesome. So see you in a couple weeks?"

"See you then!"

She closed the call window and switched to music while she filled out the endless piles of paperwork that surrounded pet adoption, surgery, and animal rights court battles the shelter had to deal with. Plus the one that said she could and would foster cats in her apartment (partially chosen for pet acceptance). And the paperwork about the lease for the apartment. Not to mention another chapter of the story she published online every week or so, whose deadline she was honestly the most worried about.

It was high school and college all over again.

On November twenty-third, Nepeta made sure her fridge wasn't in its usual half-empty state and crossed her fingers that she wouldn't get called and assigned cats to foster (because the shelter was overflowing and some of the animals needed long-term care before they could be adopted). Karkat came over early to help her clean up the perpetually messy apartment, but she was still insanely nervous.

Aradia and Sollux were the first to arrive, after Karkat of course. Aradia was joyful as ever, and Sollux was his usual introverted, perpetually grumpy-looking self. There were the beginnings of laugh lines around Aradia's mahogany eyes, and a red streak in her hair. Sollux's glasses were no longer two different colors, though his eyes were, and he was no longer doing everything in twos. The two were holding hands, and Aradia swinging her arm and his as well.

"Nepeta!" Aradia exclaimed, hugging Nepeta.

"It's so great to see you!"

"I know! It's been, what, six years?"

"Longer!"

Sollux waved at Karkat. "Hi."

"Hi, asshole," Karkat shot back.

"Karkitty, be nice," Nepeta teased.

"I am being nice."

She rolled her eyes fondly and said to her friends, "Come on in. I've cleaned up and everything."

"Wow, really?" Sollux asked sarcastically.

"Yes, really. I was here," Karkat contributed.

The doorbell rang again and Nepeta dashed to answer it. This time, a good eight people were at the door: Vriska, John, Feferi, Eridan, Dave, and Terezi. Not a minute later, Kanaya and Rose and Gamzee and Tavros arrived at the door. The only ones left where Jade and Equius.

Equius arrived exactly at seven o'clock, when Nepeta had told Aradia to tell everyone to come. Jade sprinted in, a few minutes later, panting about the last of the applications and finding an apartment close enough to commute to her future workplace. And apparently getting a driver's license for a European country.

"Hi Equius!" Nepeta grinned, waving at her best friend. "How's the robot been coming?"

"Very well, thank you. I believe only the software requires more work before the entire program is complete. And you?"

"I'll be applying to foster a cat soon because the shelter is overflowing!"

"And I presume you will not keep said animal long-term?"

"Of course not, silly! It's because the poor kitty won't have anywhere else to go."

"Will the feline be treated for disease?"

"Yes, he or she'll be vaccinated and in fairly good health, nothing I can't handle."

"If you are certain." Since he moved in just down the street and go busy with a new robot for his master's degree, he'd been much more lax about interrogating her about her actions. Including (luckily) dating Karkat. She and Equius often took the el to work together, because he worked about four blocks from the shelter where she worked. It was nice for conversation, because he was her best friend, and also for safety, because she didn't live or work in an especially safe neighborhood and though she was strong and fast, she feared that if faced with another life-or-death attack, she'd freeze up.

"I'm positive, Equius. Come on, give the cat a chance."

"I am willing to 'give the cat a chance' as you put it if it does not injure you."

"How many times do I have to say it? I will be fine."

A trace of a smile passed over Equius's face and she knew he was still her best friend.

"Nepeta!" Terezi practically cackled. "How's it been?"

"Oh, it's been great!" Nepeta smiled. A sudden spike of nerves shot through her as she remembered precisely who she was dating currently. She plastered her ID card smile on her face and continued, "So, I hear you and Dave are a thing?"

"We are!" Terezi grinned. "Took a break about eight months ago, but we've been together for a while now."

"D'aw, you two are so cute," Nepeta teased.

"What about you? Who's your new lover?"

"Oh, shut up."

"Come on, you can tell me."

Nepeta wrung her hands and said, "Promise you won't get mad?"

"Of course, why would I?" Terezi responded, confused.

"Karkat," Nepeta blurted awkwardly.

"Oh," Terezi said. "Right. Him."

"Are you okay with that? You're my friend. It's okay to tell me. I won't get mad."

"No, it's not that. It was just a really rotten, like, six years of dating. For the both of us. I dunno…looking back, maybe the two of us were never really meant to be, you know?"

"Yeah. Tell you the truth, I worried a lot about you two."

"Well, I'm fine now. I'm about halfway to getting my degree. A couple buddies and I are gonna start a practice together back round here when we graduate."

"That's so cool!"

"I know, right? What about you?"

"I work part-time at Hackney's, but really I work at the animals shelter downtown. I'm working on my master's degree, but I'm probably gonna have to get a doctorate in veterinary medicine before I work at an animal hospital."

"Wow!"

"Thanks."

Rose and Kanaya joined the conversation, linked by their intertwined fingers. "Hello," Kanaya greeted. "What have you all been up to?"

"Not much," Nepeta said. "What about you?"

"I have started my own fashion design label and gained a job as a child care provider at the local preschool," Kanaya said.

"Impressive," Terezi said.

"I'm working at the clinic downtown," Rose said. "I've been placed in charge of a group of those struggling with depression and questioning sexuality."

"And you two are still together?" Nepeta asked.

"We are engaged," Kanaya answered, holding up her left hand. A thin ring with a small stone set into it glittered in the light.

"That's wonderful!" Nepeta exclaimed.

Rose smiled, her eyes shining. "Thank you."

Karkat was standing by Sollux, Gamzee, and Eridan. The other seven stood near each other, talking loudly. Tavros was standing as far as possible from Vriska, Nepeta noted, while John was right by her side. She even noticed Dave smiling, just a touch.

"Nepeta!" Karkat called. "What's the name of the place?"

"Which place?"

"The one by the Chinese place that one guy always eats that."

"Oh, that place. Darrel's."

"Thanks."

"Yep."

"Many, how much time do you two spend together?" Aradia teased.

"Enough," Nepeta joked back.

"Well I think you two are perfect for each other," Terezi said, raising her eyebrows just a touch about her candy-red glasses. Just enough that Nepeta saw and nodded back. It was all okay.

It was November twenty-fourth, and Nepeta's apartment was a mess. Her friends, though lovely people who had parted with the promise to stay in touch, were not the neatest people, even compared to her usual (very low) standards. And she had even more paperwork: one applying to foster a mother cat and her three kittens, one about a court battle over an abused dog named Becky, and one an overview of the week's work (the most useless).

She'd finished the court papers, her second task, when a Skype call came in. The silly username was Meulin's.

"Hello, Miss Mage of Heart," Nepeta teased.

"Hello, yourself, Little Miss Kitty-cat," Meulin teased back.

"Okay, what's up?" Nepeta asked. "You always text or email. And it's been, what, a month?"

"I'm engaged!" Meulin blurted, holding up her left hand to show off a sparkling ring set with an olive-green stone (was it an emerald?) and two diamonds. "Fancy-shmancy," Nepeta smiled. "When did this happen?"

"Kurloz just proposed last night!" Meulin giggled. "We were home at the apartment and we were watching a romance movie and he said he was going to get a drink so I asked if he'd get me a Pepsi and he came back and put the sodas on the table and then he said he had to go to the kitchen cuz he forgot something and when he came back he went down on one knee and he said, 'Meulin, I want to be with you for the rest of my life. You're the happiest, nicest person I've ever known and you just light up my whole world. I love you to the moon and back. Will you marry me?' And…" Meulin squealed and fangirl-giggled, holding her fists up to her face and grinning hugely. "We're getting married soon!"

"Oh my gog, that's amazing!" Nepeta smiled. She was briefly surprised that Kurloz would say that; he was a man of few words. But hey, it was a marriage proposal. It was beautiful to see how much her sister and her sister's boyfriend—fiancé now—loved each other.

And now she had something like that herself.

She was supposed to meet him at his apartment that night, for movies and pizza. But she'd been looking through her tumblr account during a break at work and she was currently busy being shocked. He'd probably been too busy to notice.

"Karkat!" she called, unlocking the door.

"Wha—Nepeta. Hi," he called from the next room, where his desk was. He must've fallen asleep into his work.

"Have you been on tumblr today?"

"No. Got home from work, started writing, fucking fell asleep, apparently."

"Well, have you slept in the past two days?"

"…Yes…"

"No you haven't."

"Fine, fine. Whatever. I just slept now, didn't I? What's this about tumblr?"

"You know that show you write for, the sci-fi one?"

"Yeah, _. Why?"

"Look at this."

She handed him her phone and he read the posts.

_the new episode of falling stars gave me so many feels i cant even asdfghjkl;_

_ok, in response to the people who like harvey, i want to prove why he's in the wrong. more under the cut. _

_why do so many people hate on harvey? hes just trying to do whats right for diana!_

_my diana/harvey FEELS from the new episode!_

_did you guys see this in the background? know what that is? it's the necklace from episode 1x03! the one diana gave harvey that can turn a star into a black hole, destroying whole species? carl said he destroyed it but he clearly didn't. anyone else sense plot here?_

"I…I…what…" Karkat stammered, gaping as he scrolled. "I don't even…what?"

"You've got a following, silly!" Nepeta grinned, hugging him from behind (because he'd collapsed onto his desk chair) and taking her phone back.

"But it's not even that good!" he protested, completely shocked. "I mean…jeez." He paused and read another post. "Why does everyone ship Harvey and Diana? Harvey's gay as hell."

She laughed, spun around his chair, and kissed him on the lips. "Congrats, dear."

"Th-Thanks," he said, smiling in surprise. "I never thought that would ever happen."

"Well, it has, and we should celebrate!"

"What d'you mean?"

"Your show is getting popular, Karkitty! That's definitely something to celebrate!"

He properly smiled, for once. "Well, what, then? Where to?"

"Your choice. What do you want?"

"Uh…"

She kissed him again, because she was happy to see him so happy. "Whatever you like, dear."

"I'm just so tired right now, I can't even fucking think."

"Order in Italian?"

"Yeah…"

"I'll get the menu."

"Great."

She searched his messy junk drawer for the menu of the local Italian please, Holy Canoli. "What d'you want?"

"How does pasta and meat sauce sound?"

"Yeah, sure. Two canolis too?"

"Definitely."

She picked up the phone and dialed the number. "Hello? One pasta with meat sauce bowl and two canolis." She nodded once and hung up. "Karkitty! I'll be right back."

"I'll choose a movie."

She smiled, her eyes catching the light just right. "See you in a few."

"See you."

When she returned from the Italian place, he was sitting on the couch in a nest of blankets. "There's room for one more, you know."

"What happened to dinner?"

"There's also room for a Styrofoam box of spaghetti and canoli."

"Sounds good to me."

She set the food and two forks on the coffee table and climbed into the nest of blankets and pillows he'd built clearly with her in mind. The fuzziest blanket was exactly where she sat and the space he'd left was exactly the right size for the two of them to snuggle up close and share sweet kisses.

The food was finished quickly, because she'd skipped lunch because of the extra paperwork she was getting from work. She moved the takeout back to the coffee table and muzzled his neck, snuggling against him and letting his arms rest around her. One hand smoothed her hair gently and the other held hers ever so lightly, but enough that she knew he was there. Her hand rested limply on the couch as she covered one of his feet with hers. He jumped, but relaxed and continued petting her brunette locks as if he couldn't possibly be tender enough. His side was pressed so tightly against hers that she could barely tell where she ended and he began.

The movie ended, whatever it was, and Nepeta decided that at this point, it would be a much more comfortable use of their time to be kissing. So she lifted her head off his shoulder and moved her lips to meet his.

He was not at all caught off guard, she could tell. She could tell from the way he kissed back right away, and from the way his arms immediately wrapped around her so that she was pressed even closer to him. She wasn't so timid, or even nervous anymore; it was a different sort of love that was much, much more than friendship, even more than simple lust, but less than a burning, butterfly-inducing crush.

His hands played over her body, not resting for more than an instant on any one part of her. She threaded her fingers through his dark, dark hair, feeling every strand as if it would tell her some vital fact about him. She fell on top of him, her lips never leaving his, his arms still so tight around her that maybe it should've hurt, but it didn't.

But almost too soon, he broke away and sighed happily. "Nepeta," he barely mumbled.

"Hm?"

"I might actually fall asleep for once."

She smiled delicately and kissed him once more, because if he was happy, she was happy.

Years seemed to pass quicker than they ever had before and before she knew it, Nepeta was twenty-six and up for a promotion at the shelter. And, of course, still dating Karkat. But she had a funny feeling about the way he'd been acting lately. They'd always talking about marriage, bouncing around the thought like a beach ball, but he'd been both bringing up the subject and avoiding it lately. She had her suspicions, but maybe he was just under a lot of stress.

It was a nice night, the night; chilly, but not cold, and the air was clear as water. It was a Friday, a date night; they went out almost every Friday and some Saturdays. He'd said he'd meet her at this semi-formal (damn that word to hell) Mediterranean place (her favorite) downtown. She'd brushed her hair for real this time, and even taken the time to put it up. She wore a knee-length, olive-green dress that had a low back and a tight neckline and a pair of gold flats. She'd even put on her (fake) emerald drop earrings and necklace she'd inherited from her grandmother.

At the restaurant, he looked intensely nervous and fidgeted like there was no tomorrow.

"Are you alright, Karkitty?"

"Fine, fine," he said absent-mindedly. "Just…you know. Work. And the whole, 'Whoops, I accidentally wrote something that people like,' thing is actually kinds stressful because I've gotta keep up the writing otherwise people might not like it anymore."

"Karkitty, there is nothing you could do that would make your writing bad."

"I could write in a character named Wilemina the Wombat to be the min villain."

She smiled and shook her head, looking up at the ceiling just a touch. "Middle school. I don't even want to think about it."

"Exactly," Karkat affirmed.

"So how does a falafel plate to split sound?"

"Sudden subject change, but sure."

She grinned again. She was a smiley sort of person, but around him, it was a constant sort of smile. "Then let's order."

After dinner, he looked even tenser. "D'you wanna see a movie?"

"Of course, but all the theaters are closed."

"I've got movies," he suggested.

"Great. Did you drive?"

"I took the el."

"I drove. Come on, get in," she said, opening the passenger side door before sliding into the driver's seat herself. She turned the key and pulled out, headed for Karkat's apartment.

"Uh…can I just run up real quick? I haven't cleaned up or anything…"

"It doesn't matter to me, but sure," she said, locking the car and waiting in the foyer.

He buzzed open the door all of a minute later, letting her in to climb up to the fourth floor, where his apartment was. She searched her key ring for her key to his apartment (they'd been dating for four years, of course she had a key to his apartment) and unlocked the door.

The lights were dimmer than usual, and there was a huge bouquet of roses on the table in the front room. She examined the tag and it said, "Remember when I first asked you out with a rose and we were both messes at two in the morning and your old roommate shouted at us? Because I do like it was yesterday." She held one hand up to her mouth and blinked twice, holding back a tear.

She turned around and there was a candle about six feet away. Another note sat next to it. "Remember when we went to the restaurant on campus and they were out of most everything but pizza and you told me how much you loved pepperoni because it reminded you of your mother? Because I do."

She brought both hands up to her face that time, now blushing like a ripening berry. She picked up the candle and almost immediately set it down, because there was book nearby, too. It was _The Fault in Our Stars_. "Do you remember when we went on a study date to the undergrad library right before senior-year finals? You read half of your bio notes, then opened this book and read it all the way through in four hours. Your hair was in your face and I don't know if you noticed how lovely you looked, but I did. I still do."

She didn't know how to react anymore as she hugged the book to her chest. But when she lifted the book, the light glinted off something else. She walked closer, farther into his apartment, and saw that it was the mug she gave him for graduation so long ago.

"Remember when we graduated and you told me that since I drink so much coffee, I might as well have a nice mug? I've used this mug for my coffee every day since then. Every time I look at it, I remember how happy you were and how much you glowed. I remember you, I really do."

She barely caught the mug when it slipped from her fingers. She lost her grip on it because she saw a fifth item: a fancy china plate.

"Do you remember when I first came to your house for dinner? You were so nervous, as if anything could ever make me stop loving you! Your family cooked dinner for us and it was delicious; I don't think I've ever tried anything better. You also insisted on cleaning up, even when I protested. Even though you were so stressed, you were gorgeous and empathetic and interesting and kind and everything. Do you remember? I do."

The next item must be in the living room, she guessed. She took another step and saw it: a key. Her key.

"Remember when you gave me the key to your apartment? That must've taken so much courage. And thank you for it. You were shaking when you handed me this key, and you looked so, so nervous every time I walked into the apartment. And I still loved you, you know. Thanks for trusting me enough to give me this. Remember the time I gave you my key and you gave me yours? Because I do."

There was one more little thing placed on a table. It was a ring.

"Do you remember the time I proposed to you? Probably not, because I don't either. Not yet, anyways. But if you take four steps forward, I hope you will."

She was trembling like a baby tree in a windstorm. She picked up the ring and took four steps forward. She could barely see, but when she took the last step, a lamp flickered on. She turned to face it, surprised.

When she had turned back, he was on one knee. "Will you marry me?" he asked earnestly.

"Of course," she said without hesitating. She slipped on the beautiful ring and kissed him gently, letting the contact answer for her.

He smiled and blushed pink. She suddenly realized something. She reached down to her left ankle and felt for her anklet. "It's gone," she said aloud.

"What's gone?" he asked, suddenly concerned.

"My anklet. Back in the summer right before eighth grade, I made a wish anklet and wished that we'd get married someday. You know how they say that you wish on the wish anklet and when it falls off, your wish comes true? I had it yesterday. It fell off today."

"That's coincidental," he said, smiling broadly and kissing her so passionately that she nearly fainted right then and there.

**A/N: There will be at least two more chapters because I decided not to be evil in this chapter. I'm not sure what'll happen then but it's a while away so for now here's this! Be prepared for lots of fluffiness next chapter. **


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